LIBERATION August-September 1969 One Dollar the MOVEMENT: 10 YEARS from NOW

· double iss LIBERATION August-September 1969 one dollar THE MOVEMENT: 10 YEARS FROM NOW

carl ~5l-".Lv~ ~;)?u.-y~------.----__~ ..------~~ ~~~.~~~decade .-' ------reca/2 ture the dream---- cho sk some tasks for the left

c u "'0. aronson· waskow • cook .... ou • • z (/) w - 2wu w>Z newfield · lynd · naison > 0 <4: oera: . ------~ ~~~ the english teacher as civilizer paul goodman: reflections on the moon florence howe: the education of women Si

The Daley Gesture jack levine

S. ,,'1/ III. 51 CC 10 (e. b) 51

2 August-September, 1969 Li lIBERATION "uJ_:m'[')~1 lIBERATION lIBERATION August -Septem ber, 1969 Volume 14, no. 5,6 ...... HO...... SYMPOSIUM: The Movement Ten Years from Now 5 Notes on a Decade Ready for the Dustbin Carl Oglesby 20 A New Sensibility Rooted in Rebellion Jack Newfield 22 Beyond Old and New Left James Aronson 26 To Recapture the Dream Julius Lester 31 In Defense of SDS Mark Naison 35 Mighty Mice Bill Crawford 36 Getting to Know America Bob Cook 38 Some Tasks for the New Left Noam Chomsky 44 A Program for Post-Campus Radicals Staughton Lynd 46 Business, Religion, and the Left Arthur Waskow ARTICLES 49 The Education of Women Florence Howe 56 A Guide to the Grand Jury Brian Glick and Kathy Boudin 59 Poetry Chris Pollock 60 Refl.ectionson the Moon Paul Goodman Staff COMMUNICATIONS Susan Danielson Jeanne Friedman 63 An Exchange Jon Weissman and Staughton Lynd David Gelber 65 The English Teacher as Civilizer Barbara Kessel Lamar Hoover Chris Pollock Barbara Webster

Editorial Board Associate Editors

A.J. Muste (1885·1967) Kay Boyle Some of the photography in this issue is courtesy of Magnum Dave Dellinger, Editor Nat Hentoff and these prints may be found in Crisis in America. Photo­ Barbara Deming Mulford Sibley Paul Goodman graphs by Jeanne Friedman and Amelio Grossi are also in­ Sidney· Lens cluded. Interested readers may contact the photographers Staughton Lynd at Liberation. We would like to extend our thanks to Miss Linda Anderson of Associated American Artists who helped us secure the Sel'Ulld Closs pustage paid New York. artwork in several of the articles. Located at 663 Fifth ,.'If . Y. Nc wsstalld distribution is lILli/dIed 1>.1' t:astcrn News Distributors. Avenue in New York, Associated American Artists is the repository of the largest collection of prints in America. Subscription: I year S7. 00: individual copies 75 cents. Make checks payable Special thanks to Jack Levine, whose print on page 2 has to LIBERA nON. Published Monthly never appeared in print before. (except March·April.'when bi·monthly} by LIBERA TJON at 339 Lafayette Liberation is soliciting artwork for future issues. If you are Street, New York, N. Y. /001 2. interested in appearing in Liberation please contact Jeanne Copyright 1969 /J y L/BERA T/oN Friedman, 674-0050.

3 Liberation r I

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p'e idea of trying to visualize ourselves five or ten years from now seems to me hopeless but necessary, so I'm writing a letter instead of a paper just because it seems easier in the former to float, stammer, and skip. Hopeless-to put it most abstractly- because I don't Notes on a Decade think we have anything like a predictive science of political economy. We approach having an explanatory art of his­ tory, I think, and sometimes we can build up a head of Ready for the Dustbin steam-bound analogies and go crashing an inch or so through the future barrier, but it always turns out we land Carl Oglesby sideways or even upside down. And more practically, hope­ less because in a situation as sensitive as what the world's in now, mankind as a whole lives under the permanent Terror of the Accidental. But necessary, too, this idea, because even if we're never going to surpass improvisatory politics, we could still im­ provise ,better if we were clearer about ourselves and the

Liberation 5 country, and the effort to think about the future always of Black Power, whlch clearly (at least to hindsight) im­ turns out to be an c;:ffort to think about the present. Which plied the forthCOming ghetto-equals-colony analysis and the is all to the good. So I'll start with the past-to get a sense shift from an integrationist to a separatist-nationalist poli­ of trajectory, if any, or the rhythm of our experience, to tics, which of course was to bring two problems for every see if there's a line of flight: one it solved. This shift seems to have been necessitated by the impasse which integrationism confronted at Atlantic 1960-64 City the previous year. *What was the Atlantic City of the white student move­ As well the Freedom Rides as Greensboro? But then, as ment that was to go from pro-peace to anti-war, anti-war weli the desegregation decision as the Freedom to pro-NLF, pro-NLF to anti-imperialist to pro-Third World Rides ... etc. Whenever it began, this was the Heroic Pe­ revolution to anti-capitalism to pro-socialism-and thence, riod, the movement's Bronze Age. In transition ever since, wi th much more confusion and uncertainty than this the movement has yet to prove it will have a Classical schedule implies, to anti-peace (Le., no co-eXistence) and ; Period, but maybe we're on the verge. Essentially, a single­ anti-democracy ("bourgeois jive"), and which finds itself at issue reform politics; integration the leading public demand, the present moment broken into two, three, many factions, although underneath that demand, there's a sharply rising each of which claims to have the real Lenin (or Mao or Che) - sense ·that a structural maldistribution of wealth won't be in its pocket? Riddled with vanguarditis and galloping sec­ corrected by the abolition of Jim Crow. An implicitly tarianism; and possessed of a twisty hallucination called the radical democratic communitarianism, projected correctly "mass line" like an ancient virgin her incubus (or is it just as both a means and an end of the movement, can still a hot water bottle?) the Rudd-Jones-Ayers SDS is at least CCold War with the mass-line stance, but the point here is to under­ I without yet having become suspicious characters, and stand that it didn't just come upon SDS out of nowhere, (b) the reform tide seems to be running, picking up velo­ not even the nowhere of the PIP, and that in the end, city and mass, and has still to hit the breakwater. But whatever you think of it, it has to happen: (a) because there's a richness in the decentralist idioms of this period there was no way to resist the truth of the war, no way, that has only been neglected, certainly not exhausted, or that is, to avoid imperialism; (b) because once the policy even barely tapped, in the intervening half decade of transi­ critique of the war had been supplanted by the structural tion. critique of the empire, all political therapies short of social­ ist revolution appeared to become senseless; and (c) because the necessity of a revolutionary strategy was, 1965 in effect, the same thing as the necessity of Marxism-Lenin­ tl (i Vry quick, sharp changes, engineered in part by J ohn­ ism. There was- and is-no other coherent, integrative, and explicit philosophy of revolution. tJ son, in part by self-conscious growth within the movement. s *The war abruptly becomes the leading issue for most I do not want to be misunderstood about this. The 11 white radicals. But not for community organizers, some of practical identity of Marxism-Leninism with revolutionary a whom in fact are bitter about the new preoccupation. This theory, in my estimate, does not mean that Marxism-Lenin­ v is neither the fIrst nor the last time tIlltt this sort of ism is also identical with a genuinely revolutionary practice \1 friction develops. What is its general form? A nationalist vs. in the advanced countries. That identity, rather, constitutes n an internationalist consciousness? It appears that some acti­ nothing more than a tradition, a legacy, and a problem g vists will always tend to visualize the American people which I think the Left will have to overcome. But at the r mainly as victims, and others will tend to see them as same time, I don't think the American Left's· fIrst stab at I criminal accomplices (passive or not) of the ruling class. producing for itself a fulfilled revolutionary consciousness This maybe points to an abiding problem for an could have produced anything better, could have gone advanced-nation socialist movement-a problem which will beyond this ancestor-worship politics. It was necessary to be neither understood nor solved simply by the Trotskyist discover-or maybe the word is confess-that we had ances­ slogan, "Bring the troops home." tors in the flISt place; and if for no brighter motive than *The teach-ins and the SDS April March on Washington gratitude at not being so alone and rootless, the discovery of repeat in a compressed time scale · the civil-rights move­ the ancestors would naturally beget a religious mood. ment's growth from Greensboro to Selma. It's in this very That of the revival tent, no doubt, but religiOUS all the brief, very intense period that SDS projects an unabashedly same. reformist critique of the war, our naive attack on the Again: Why did the white student Left so quickly aban­ domino theory being the best illustration of this: "But the don its liberal or reformist criticism of the war as policy other dominos won't fall," we insisted, happy to give such and substitute its radical criticism of the war as the result reassurance to the Empire. of an imperialist structure? The former seems to have had *SNCC formalizes its transformation from reform to much to recommend it: simple, straightforward, full of revolution, first, by explicating the connection between pathos and even sentimentality, it has by this· time been racism and the war; and second, by focusing the metaphor linked (by liberals) to a still more pathos-laden cry to bring

6 August-September, 1969 mos. I think it can be shown that the practice of this essen­ tial work had already been jaopardized by the over-all charac­ ter of production in the late '50s. Those whose role in production is to explain production, to provide it with its cover of rationality, had found it impossible to play , their role convincingly simply because production had be­ come extrinsically anti-social. Workers who cannot do their work rebel. They do so, furthermore, in the name of their work, in behalf of its possibility, and therefore in the name of that reordered system in which their work would again become possible. f The main point here is that 1965 was the year in which both the black and white sectors of the movement explicit­ ~,"""""'",, ' 4 \~ ly abandoned reformism and took up that long march , whose destination, not even in sight yet, is a theory and -..~ /1)~ practice of revolution for the United States. For the West. -( / : • I I ./ 1966-67 i rp,e rise of the resistance (in all its variety) and experi­ I ments with a "new-working-class" analysis, both motions strongly influenced by Greg Calvert and Carl Davidson. Superficially, these developments seemed to be congruent and intersupportive. But it looks to me now as if they were ..,/ . , in fact opposite responses to the general problem of con­ ceiving and realizing a revolutionary strategy, each one being a kind of political bet which the other one hedged. There was, I know, a lot of heavy theorizing about the politics of resistance, and I don't want to turn a complex experience into a simple memory. Still, I think it's fair to the boys back, and these two thrusts-save our boys and take the slogans as being indicative of its political atmos­ (incidentally) their babies-now make up the substance of phere-"Not with my life, you don't!" for example, or "A the popular complaints against the war. (Harriman is now call to resist illegitimate authority." Even if only in em­ saying what we said about the war four years ago. What bryo, I think "resistance" was at bottom a youth-based happened was that the student movement traded this easy anti-fascist front whose most central demand must have argument against the war for a much harder one. Not that appeared to any outsider's eye to be for a return to the we rose as one man to denounce imperialism, of course. It status quo ante, That's not to say that its organizers were was in October of that year that Paul Booth told the not radicals or that its inner content was anti-socialist or nation that SDS only wanted to "build, not burn." But he non-socialist. But in basing itself on the individual's rights got into a lot of trouble for his pains; and when about a of self-determination (mythical, of course: we were all hip month later, at the SANE-organized March on Washington, to the con), and in trying to depict Johnson's as an I used (without knowing it) all the paraphernalia of an imposter ("illegitimate") regime, the Resistance was easily anti-imperialist critique without once using the word "im­ as unassuming in its politics as it was extravagant in its perialism," nobody objected, nobody said, "This line com­ imagination. mits us to an attempt at revolution and therefore, true or At the same time, Carl ("I Blush to Remember") David­ not, should be rejected as being politically impracticable." son, among others, was trying to work out a new-working­ Why did our movement want to be "revolutionary?" class concept of the student rebellion, the main purpose Very generally: An extrinsic failure of production (i.e., being to discover in this rebellion that revolutionary power production turned against social reproduction) had already which one feared it might not have. Wanting revolution been intuited by that sector of the workers whose function (with all that implies about the power to make one) but is to pacify the relations of production. The most general only having spasms of campus rebellion, the student syndi­ means of this pacification is the neutralizing of the moral calists needed to show that at least the seed of the first environment. This is what poets, political scientists, lit. found fertile ground in the latter. teachers, sociolOgists, preachers, etc. are supposed to do. Meanwhile: The method of political action which had Deflect, divert, apologize, change the subject, prove either been reintroduced in Harlem-'64 or Watts-'65 was on some that our gods are virtuous and our direction right or that terms perfected in Detroit-'67. All whites are conyinced no gods are virtuous and no direction right and that rebel­ that something will have to be done, but nobody knows lion ought therefore to forego history and take on the Cos- quite what to do. Except, of course, for the Right, which

Liberation 7 What happened at Columbia/Harlem in the April of '68 is just as important as what happened in Hay Market Square-but at the same time no more important.

understood at once that was was needed was a metropoli­ tan police force equipped both militarily and politically for urban counter-insurgency.

The worker comprehends the factory, in fact, as his means 1968 b: of consumption. It's in distribution patterns that the life aJ Gnfidence reappeared with Columbia and France, and styles of the class hierarchy are imposed; in the consump­ is then took an important turn with Chicago. tion patterns thus produced that the hierarchy of classes is Columbia: (1) Conclusively, students have severely li­ most immediately lived. Production reiations, as they are mited but formidable power to intervene in certain pro­ is actually lived, are usually politically neutral: the difference h4 cesses of oppression and to compel certain institutional between an 8-hour day under U.S. capitalism and a 16-hour aJ reforms. (2) -A practical alliance between blacks and whites day under Cuban socialism is hardly to the former's advan­ a1 became a concrete fact for the first time since Selma. The tage. In fact, it's much more often a failure in the distrib­ campus continues to be the main current locus of this h utive or consumptive functions that creates political trouble q alliance. (I say this, obviously, in view of Columbia's subse­ for capitalism, How to finance further expansion? How to ir quence: Columbia's innovations proved repeatable else­ empty these bursting warehouses? And it could even be where.) (3) Production relations constitute the life of class oJ . argued that as between the ghetto rising and the militant tl economy; distribution relations constitute the life of class strike in heavy industry, the former is closer to that society; consumption relations constitute the life of class C famous "seizure of State power" than the latter is. But h politics. The stormed or barricaded factory gate of classical why try to choose at all? We are dealing here only with tl revolutionary vision is not the definitive image of any aspects of a unitary complex, not with elements of a S] "final" or "pure" proletarian consciousness. The struggle at compound, and the tendencies of a method of analysis to tI the point of production, when it occurs, is merely one reproduce reality as a set of correlative abstractions should s: expression of a more general struggle which, much more never be permitted to reduce aspects of a continuous social VI often than not, is ignited and fed by consciousness of process to the elements of its model. What happened at CI inequities of consumption. * Columbia/Harlem in the spring of '68 is just as important, just as pregnant and portentious, as what happened in fi Haymarket Square-but at the same time, no more import­ C *"In eighteenth-century England the manufacturing work­ ant either. We have littered contemporary American history ers, miners, and others, were far more conscious of being 1, with a hundred aspiring preludes whose aggregate current exploited by the agrarian capitalists and middle-men, as h meaning is precisely the fight for the last word about their consumers, than by their petty employers through wage­ fl labour; and in this country {England] today consumer and meaning, but whose future denouement is not yet revealed al cultural exploitation are quite as evident as is exploitation to us. To make the point still more explicit: There is no 'at the point of production' and perhaps are more likely to g< such thing as a model revolution (or even if you think you explode into political consciousness." KP. Thompson, "The tl have found such a thing in fa Revolution francaise, note Peculiarities of the English," The Socialist Register, 1965 n (London), Ralph Miliband and John Saville, eds., p. 355. that it materialized considerably in advance of the theory el that hailed it as such), and there is no revolutionary theory

8 August-September, 1969 1 ...o ~ ~ o::l U by means of which right and wrong sites of organization that the white base of the strike is not represented in the and agitation can be discriminated. The function of analysis strike leadership committee) or for the adding on of ''white is to clarify reality, not to pass judgment on it. demands" (which tended to obscure the specifically anti­ A few other points about Columbia: (4) "Co-optation" racist character of the action). Neither approach is any is obviously a useful concept. It warns you against being good. It is wrong for the base of the movement, any hoodwinked by those who've learned to smile and smile action, not to have a voice in tactical and strategic policy­ and still be villains. Unfortunately, just beyond that point witness, for one thing, the general bewilderment of the at which it remains useful, it flops over completely and white SF State students who, when the strike was over, becomes disastrous: it can become a no-win concept mas­ had little to do but return to business-as-usual classrooms. querading either as tactical cunning or strategic wisdom. It It is also wrong, or at least not quite right, for whites to instructs people to reject what their fight has made possible demand "open admissions for all working-class youth" at on the grounds that it falls short of what they wanted. If the same time that the same whites are (a) trying to help the Left allows its provisional victories to be reaped by the make a point about the racist nature of colleges, and Center-Left, trust that those victories will very promptly (b) attacking the content of the basic college education on be turned into most unprovisional setbacks. Am I saying the grounds that it's a brainwash. The German SDS idea of that we should sometimes have people ''working within the the critical university, somehow adapted to our particular system's institutions?" Precisely, emphatically, and without political objectives, might break through the current di­ the slightest hesitation! You are co-opted when the adver­ lemma at the level of program. But especially since the sary puts his goals on your power; you are not co-opted dilemma may shortly materialize in noncampus settings, it's when your power allows you to exploit his means (or flISt necessary to break it at a theoretical or general level. contradictions) in behalf of your goals. Why does racism hurt whites? Or which whites does it (5) The SF State strike retrospectively clarified one dif­ hurt, and why and how? ficulty, maybe a shortcoming, of the Columbia strike. France, the May Days: "The revolt of the students is Other BSU-SDS-type eruptions suffered from the same the revolt of the forces of modern production as a whole," lapse. Namely: We very badly need a clear, sharp formula­ writes Andre Glucksmann, a leading theoretician of the tion of the white interest in overcoming racism. All of us March 22 Movement. This intriguing formulation, like all feel, that this "white-ski~privilege" -if it is even a privilege new-working-class theorizing, is at bottom nothing but an at all-costs us something, and that the cost exceeds the attempt to find a new face for the old Leninist mask: Only gain. Yet we've had difficulty making it clear why we feel "workers" can make 20th Century revolutions, so those this way, and for the most part in the hurry of the who are creating a big revolution-sized fuss, even if they moment have simply had to abandon the attempt, opting come outfitted with a few electrifying Sartrean neolOgisms, either for a purely moralistic explanation (which has meant must therefore be some new kind of workers. I think this

Liberation 9 souped-up "New Left" scholasticism is worse than the Old "lessons." Orthodoxy. Any common-sensical reading of the Glucks­ 1. No key West European nation (Britain, France, Ger­ mann map would lead the revolution-watcher straight to many, Italy) can slide hard to the Left unless a Warsaw the faculties of administration, technology and applied Pact nation can also slide equally hard to the right. France sciences, since it's within the meanings of the New Tech­ and Czechoslovakia constitute the gigue and the saraband nology that these "forces of modern production as a of an unfinished political suite. whole" are being visualized. Maybe at Nanterre, where the 2. We're in a period in which, for the first time in fuse was lit. But certainly not at the Sorbonne or any­ modern history, the social base of a truly post-industrial where else in Paris, where the student base of the revolt, socialism is being produced, delta-like, outside capitalism's just as in the United States, came out of the faculties of institutional reach. (That is, a socialism which rejects capi­ liberal arts and the social sciences. Quite contrary to talism because ·of its successes instead of its failures, and Glucksmann, the revolt of the students is the revolt against which comes into existence in order to supercede and the forces of modern production as a whole-a fact which surpass industrial society, not to create it.) But for long would doubtless be apparent to everyone if it weren't for time within the capitalist state, and for much longer within the intellectual tyranny of Marxism-Leninism. the capitalist empires, this new base will co-exist with the }he more tradition-minded Leftists scarcely did any old: that which wants to go beyond will co-exist with that better with this out-of-nowhere avalanche. Not for one which needs to come abreast. This constitutes the protrac­ moment having imagined it was about to happen, insisting tedly transitional nature of the current period, a source on the contrary that nothing like it ever could happen, and both of confusion and opportunity within the world Left having fmally satisfied themselves that all their curses and community, and above all a problem which the advanced­ spells couldn't make it go away, the Old Crowd FCP nation Left will have to solve by means of a post-Leninist determined to see in this Almost-Revolution a conclusive theory and a post-Leninist practice. vindication of their theories, practices and political rheuma­ Chicago: (1) Liberalism has no power in this country. tism all combined. "Behold, Lenin lives!" cried the Stalin­ It is not politically organized. The few secondary institu­ ists of France, even as they bent their every effort to tions in which it lives its hand-to-mouth existence are, at killing him again. best, . nothing more than insecure and defenseless sanctuar­ The main fact about the Almost-Revolution is that it ies. In none of the estates-not the church, not the media, was almost a revolution, not that it was almost a revolu­ not the schools-does it exhibit the least aggressiveness, the n tion. As parched for victories as the Western Left has been least staying power, the least confidence. This country: in p the current situation, is absolutely impotent before the in the post-war period, it may be forgiven its ecstasy at ti scoring a few runs. But what are we left with? No ques­ threat of what Fulbright has lately called "elective fascism. " tions, Pompidou is not the only or the main or even a very a important result of the May Days; as a minimum, the n feudalism of the French academy has been jolted, and III admit that this discovery surprised me. I had thought p maybe it's still a big deal in the 7th decade of the 20th that the liberals had a little crunch left. McCarthy had l century to give academic feudalism a jolt. But it seems to always obviously been an icecube in an oven; but even h me that all the lessons people are claiming to have learned deprived of Kennedy, I had supposed that the liberals o are not lessons at all, only so many brute-force misreadings would have been able to drive a few more bargains. They of the event. To claim that the student foco was a worker were helpless at Chicago, and their helplessness has only it" "detonator" is to dodge the awful question of the van­ deepened since then. (Observe the sorry spectacle of Yan­ a guard, not to face it and overcome it, and besides that, it keedom's main gunslingers, Harriman, Vance, and Clifford, o tortures a meaning into "student" that has nothing to do vainly trying to ambush Nixon, who knows and impertur­ iI with the students' evident meanings. On the other hand, bably defeats their every confused move.) v the claim that the old problem of the "worker-student For the very simple truth about Chicago is that Daley got o alliance" has found here the possibility of its solution away with it, and there was nothing anybody could do. s seems to me the very opposite of what the facts indicate: What "Big Contributor" dropped a word to the wise t, Under propitious, even ideal circumstances, with the State against him? What "Key Party High-up" moved even to f isolated and virtually dumb before the crisis, with DeGaulle censure him behind the scenes or slow him down? The S offering nothing more spiritual than an old man's resent­ institutional mass of the society is either neutralized or a ment or more concrete than a diluted form of the students' passively or actively supportive of reaction, .and reaction v program, with the army out-flanked politically and the can go, quite simply, as far as it determines it needs to go. police widely disgraced, with production mired in fiscal Screaming their heads off at both the infant Left and the n doldrums, the industrial workforce caught with a deep entrenched Right, liberals have neither base nor privilege, unease and its bureaucratized leadership dozing, it still neither an organized following nor access to the levers of proved hard for students and young workers to make power. This is important. contact, and (so it now seems) all but impossible for them to (2) If only because it sharpens the melodrama, we may forge a lasting and organic revolutionary union. as well pinpoint Chicago, August, as the place and time of It seems to me that the following are more defensible the "mass line's" formal debut: an unforgettable lit-up

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Chicago occasioned these two terminal movements; the humiliation of liberalism and the "official" reversion of SOS to a Marxist-Leninist worldview. nighttime scene, Mike Klonsky taking the bullhorn at Grant try, the People's Park showdown in June, the SDS conven­ Park to harangue the assembly about its "reformist" poli­ tion, and the Black Panther call for the Oakland confer­ tics. ence. I've already indicated that I see nothing promising in San Francisco State: I want to make just two observa- any version of Marxixm-Leninism-not PL's, not that of the tions on this much-studied event. . now-defunct "national collective" of the Klonsky-Coleman First, the movement's characteristic attitude toward par­ period or of its apparent successor, the Revolutionary tial victories-more particularly, toward what is disparaged Union, and not that of the more diffuse and momentarily as "student power"-is mechanistic. It appears that every hazier grouping, the Revolutionary Youth Movement. But change which is not yet The Revolution is either to be of course I don't claim that a mere statement of this view airily written off as no change at all, or further than that, constitutes either an explanation of it or an argument for to be denounced as co-optation into the counter-revolution. it. The argument will have to be made, very carefully, in People should only try to remember that the SF State another place, and I have to confIne myself here to the strike did not materialize out of thin air, that it had a observation that any revolutionary movement will all but background, that it was that particular moment's culmina­ inevitably adapt itself to Marxism-Leninism-or the other tion of a long conflictual process, and that just as with way around-because there is just no other totalizing phil­ Columbia, where political work had been sustained at a osophy of revolution. This philosophy then enables a repre­ generally intense level at least since May 1965, the explo­ sentation of reality in something like the following general sive strike at State was made possible, maybe even neces­ terms: "A desire in pursuit of its means, a means in flight sary, by a long series of small moves forward, anyone of from its destiny-these conditions constitute The Problem. which could have been attacked as "bourgeois liberal re­ Solution: tomorrow, when history'S preplanted timebomb form." More precisely, it was in large part those incre­ at last goes off, blasting false consciousness away, the mental "reforms" of curriculum and student-teacher and words of the prophets will be fulfilled." teacher-administration relationships carried out under the Chicago, in any case, occasioned these two terminal unseeing eyes of President Summerskill that created the moments: the humiliation of liberalism, and the "offIcial" general conditons in which the strike could take place. As reversion of SDS to a Marxist-Leninist worldview. with Columbia, the atmosphere had long been thoroughly politicized-that is to say, charged with consciousness of 1969 national issues. And a long reign of liberalism had, in effect, already legitimated the demands around which the ffie leading events so far: The SF State strike and the strike was fought through, just as a long reign of reformism structurally similar conflicts that erupted across the coun- had created the institutional means of the strike. In the

Liberation 11 same way, the fact that the Third World Liberation Front fascism at a distance; and when protracted "wars of libera­ jai leadership did after all negotiate the "nonnegotiable" de­ tion," wherever they happen (ghettoes, campuses) and N{ mands, the further fact that this leadership then moved to whatever unpredicted form they take (e.g., Peru!), succeed pe. consolidate these bargaining-table victories within the in driving this frontier fascism back upon its metropolitan an changing structure of the institution itself-this meanf not front, then the whole political and social basis of the in! that the fight was over, not at all that "capitalism" had empire begins to fragment and dissolve. For a stable empire ha suffered a tactical defeat only to secure a strategic victory, can be military only in its means, not in its ends-its ends but rather that the stage was-and is-being set for another necessarily being a mode of prodUction, distribution, and round of conflict at a still higher level of consciousness consumption; and the servicing of these ends ultimately st( within a still wider circle of social involvement. For the net requires exactly that metropolitan class hegemony (all Tt result of the strike's victories is still further to break down classes passively accepting or even affirming the rule of the in the psychological, social, and political walls that had for­ dominant class, the class hierarchy having therefore the be merly sealed off the academy from the community. This is firm structure of vertical consent) which fascism supplants ch a big part of what we are about-the levelling of all these with class coercion. * towers, the redistribution of all this ivory, the extroversion tht One brief aside on a related matter: When I fust met of these sublimely introverted corporate monstrosities: and po white New Leftists about five years ago, their most com­ not just because we have willed it, whether out of malice SUI mon fear was that they were not a serious threat. Along or chagrin or a blazing sense of justice, but rather because cit: with this went the equally common belief that their ser­ capital itself, in all its imperial majesty, has invested these bo iousness would be proved only if they were vigorously schools with its own trembling contradictions. Necessarily to attacked. (The current expression of this is the general view demanding a mass consciousness of and for its techno­ fo that the ''vanguard'' is whoever is being most vigorously logical and political ambitions, it necessarily produces a w( attacked: it is not the people who pick their leaders, but mass consciousness of the servility of the first and the it-s the State.) No one suggested that the Other Side might be brutality of the second. Necessarily demanding an army of ab holding less than a fistful of aces, that the adversary was not social managers, pacifiers of the labor force, it necessarily m super smart, that he might be stymied by his own contra­ produces an army of social problem solvers, agitators of dictions. Maybe it was my background that made that same labor force. Necessarily demanding an increas­ sit ingly sophisticated corps of servicemen to the empire, it me skeptical-grandson of the south's Last Peasant Pat­ va necessarily produces a cosmopolitanism to which this em­ riarch, sone of a first-generation migrant from a defeated rural economy to the industrial revolution (Akron: smoke, tft pire's shame is its most conspicuous feature. Necessarily ve demanding a priesthood to bless its work in the stolen tires, factories, timeclocks, the permanently present mem­ en name of humanity, it necessarily produces the moral and ory of the "home" which you had abandoned in spite of ve social weaponry of its own political condemnation. a1 wishes and had thereby, despite yourself, helped des­ troy, and which you could never go back to again no ed matter how many rides you took those seven hundred or W play upon these stops. Not able to arrest this pro­ miles on hot jampacked Greyhound buses that, once below wl cess, as Reagan wants, nor to let it go forward, as the Marietta, stopped every other mile to pick up or let off tic h1>erals want, doomed to be blind in either this eye or the still another coming or going hillbilly, suitcase in one hand, ch other, not able to prosper without teaching us to serve it, baby in the other, eyes shot from whiskey and incompre­ bl; not able to teach us to serve without somehow teaching hension .... Another time I must deal with this). I had M: us also its inner secrets, not able to teach us those secrets thought that there was precious little need to go out of th without teaching us to despise it, capitalism in our time is your way to provoke those distant people who worked on pI forced upon-forces upon itself-a choice of mortalities. Mahogany Row, lived in the mansions of Fairlawn, and 01 Either to continue that process whose most general form is owned all the cops and politicians. If the vague people of til simply total urbanization, with its attendant destruction of the vague middle were ignorant of how power worked and m all the disciplinary taboos, of the family, of political reli­ who had it and who did not, we who lived just at the edge tit gion, of nationalism, of property and the ethics of proper­ of the black ghetto and whose lives were ordered by the ru ty, of individualism and the entrepreneurial style; or to try vicissitudes of production-cutbacks, layoffs, speedups, so to reverse that process, in which case it destroys its fragile doubles, strikes-were under no illusions. We knew their fr equilibrium, destroys the social base and dynamiC of pro due·· viciousness because man, woman and child we had it for th tion and growth, puts on the airbrakes constant companion. My mind was blown, its gears strip­ ar and turns off its engines in midflight. If it makes the first ped, to hear someone say that the gift of authenticity was sc chOice, it bursts like an egg: social control over the means of the Man's to give, that it came in the form of clubbings and th education is necessarily only the prologue to social control of to the means of production, distribution, and consumption, df *If the biography of German Nazism seems to contradict If it makes the second choice, if it tries to freeze every­ this thesis. recall that Junker coercion was finally translated W thing, then the living thing, the life inside the egg, dies out; into the hegemony of the State itself not mainly because tr: a moment more, the shell collapses: Already a fascism in of risings in the colonies, but because of pressure from rival Wi its colonies, . the empire is obliged nevertheless to hold its imperialisms dating back at least to the First World War. bf

12 August-September, 1969 L

------1- jailings, and that, left unprovoked, he might withhold it. production that makes the campuses a primary site of d Not so : puruse your aims with stark simplicity and in all contemporary revolutionary motion. Only when that ques­ d peaceableness, put money in thy purse with the politest tion is answered will we have any right to pontificate about n and gentlest of smiles-trust him, he'll get around to mak­ "correct" and "irlcorrect?' lines, and it has not yet been e ing you pay, and anybody who does not know this just answered. Meanwhile, even if it is good and sufficient, as I e hasn't been paying attention. am almost sure it is not, to characterize "student power" s So. That's the first "observation" -the winning of a as a fight for "burgeois privilege," we would still have to i "reform" isn't always a bad business, and Leftists should ask: What kind of privilege? Assuming that there is nothing { stop being scared of being reformed out of things to do. here at all but an intra-class struggle agairlst the contempt­ I The only real strategic necessity is to make sure the reform uous irldifference of irlstitutions, against the mindless blath­ in question reforms the power configuration so that it er of the dons, the deans, the sycophants and the liars, becomes the basis for further and still more fundamental against authority in particular and authoritarianism on prin­ challenges to class rule. ciple, we would still have to say that the political balance The second observation is connected. It has to do with of thiS struggle is progressive and portentous. To those who the question of what's called (disparagingly) "student , tell me that this fight neither equals, approximates, irrit­ power." The formula attack on the making of demands for iates, nor reveals the form of The Revolution Itself, I such things as curriculum reform and greater student parti­ answer first, Neither did Nanterre, neither did Watts, nei­ cipation in campus government goes like this: "The young ther did anything else irl man's social history but a bare bourgeois, privileged already, exhibits here only his desire. handful of uniquely definitive and epochal convulsions, to extend his privileges still further. This desire must be each one of which moreover appeared only at the end of a fought by radicals. If not exactly in the name of the painfully long train of irldeterrninate events which escaped working class, we must see ourselves as fighting at least in their ambiguity only thanks to the denouement; and I its behalf, and since its interests are hardly served by the answer second, If you are trying to tell me you know abolition of grades or the reduction of required credits, we already what The Revolution Itself will look like, you are must oppose such demands." either a charlatan or a fool. We have no scenario. First, the outlines of a speculation. What if the multiver­ Scond, for what it's worth to a movement suddenly sity is in some substantial part the creation of the ad­ infatuated with the words of the prophets, Lenirl faced a vanGed-world proletariat-not merely the plaything and mis­ somewhat similar question irl 1908 when certain radicals tress of the imperialists? What if it is partly irl the multi­ refused to support an all-Russia student strike on the versity that the ,proletariat has banked and stored up its grounds that "the platform of the strike is an academic enormous achievements in technology? What if the multi­ one" which "cannot unite the students for an active versity-the highest realization yet of the idea of mass struggle on a broad front." Lenin obje~ted : "Such an education and the rationalization of productive labor-is irl argument is radically wrong. The revolutionary slogan-to one of its leading aspects the institutional form through work towards coordinated political action of the students which the proletariat continues its struggle for emancipa­ and the proletariat-here ceases to be a 'live guidance for tion? Behind how many of these so-called "bourgeois" many-sided militant agitation on a broadenirlg base and children, one or two generations back, stands a father in a becomes a lifeless dogma, mechanically applied to different blue collar, a mother in an apron? The proletariat, says stages of different forms of the movement." Further: "For Marx, will have to prepare itself for self-government this youth, a strike on a large scale : .. is the beginning of a through protracted struggle. What if this struggle is so political conflict, whether those engaged in the fight realize protracted that it actually must be seen as taking place, irl it or not. Our job is to explain to the mass of 'academic' one of its aspects at least, across generations? The revolu­ protesters the objective meaning of the conflict, to try and tionary aspiration of whites in the 1930's manifested itself make it consciously political." most sharply in factory struggles. In the 1960's, that aspira­ The People's Park: Those few SDSers, unfortunately tion has materialized most sharply on the campuses. What conspicuous this past year, who think Stalinism is more or have we made of this fact? The function of a method of less right on, ought at least to have admitted that "social­ social analysis is not to reprimand reality for diverging ism in one country" is not exactly the logical antithesis of from its model, but on the contrary to discover in reality "socialism in one park." But it was the Stalirrists, both the links and conjunctures that make history intelligible pure and off-breed, who among all the Bay Area radicals and life accessible to effective action. An abstraction is not found it hardest to relate to the park before the attacks, something to stand behind like a pulpit but a lens to see were most puzzled by the attack itself, and produced the through more discerningly. Obvious? Then it is high time most opportunistic "support" irl the aftermath. Mainly be­ to confess: At the same time that it has been trying so cause these curious , rumbles of the hip are so hard to focus desperately to live forwards, the New Left everywhere, irl politically in terms of a mass-and-vanguard model, it's hard West Europe as well as here, has been just as desperately for people with old minds to figure out how to relate to trying to think backwards. If Marxism is any good, and if them. That fact may be the basis of a touching epitaph; we can prove it worthy of the moment, then we ought to but a living politics for our period will have to understand be able to say what it is about contemporary relations of that "decadence" is as "decadence" does, that the "cultural

Liberation 13 revolution" is not merely a craven and self-serving substi­ still (we must suppose) very incompletely in the hip com­ ide! tute for the "political" one, and that if the West has, munities, portends the historically most advanced develop­ rno' indeed, a leftwards destiny, then neither its particular ends ment for socialist consciousness. the nor its modes of organization and action will be discovered "Most fully" because it goes beyond industrialization, soh through archeology. My guess: People's Park waS one and in doing so, implies (much more than it has so far frrs1 among many episodes of a religious revival movement­ realized) a genuinely New Man-just as new compared to reve exactly the kind of movement that has heralded every Industrial Man as Industrial Man was new in comparison to ilia: major social convulsion in the United States-and as with the artisans and small farmers who foreran him. rno: all such movements, its ulterior target, its enemy, is the But it would be useless just to approve of this cultural pea forces of the industrialization of culture. The difference revolution without being very clear about its terrible limits. exp now is that the virtual consummation of the Industrial I see two limits. First: The "new values" (they are, of say: Revolution, within the West, lends a credibility and rele­ course, very old) can claini to be subversive only of the ball vance to such a program that it formerly has not had. That standing values of work, but not really of consumption, mo' is: The anti-industrialism of early radicals like Blake and there being nothing in the structure and precious little in ety Cobbett, though it was fully anti-capitalist, could confront the texture of "hip leisure" that keeps it from being com­ had rampant capitalist industrial progress with nothing more mercially copied (deflated) and packaged. Thus, in effect, powerful than a retiring, improbably, defenseless nostalgia; the target of the attack detaches itself, refuses to defend r could argue against the system of "masters and slaves" only itself, and in offering itself as the apparent medium of the .J in behalf of the older and no doubt mythical system, attack is able (persuasively to all but the sharpest con­ At allegedly medieval, of "masters and men." Every time it sciousness) to pose as the "revolution's" friend. There are a han became a practical movement-whether revolutionary or thousand examples of this process, whose minimum result tha1 reformist-socialism had to put forward simply a more is vastly to complicate the cultural critique, and which at con rational version of the program of industrialization itself. the other limit succeeds wholly in diSarming it. The quiet­ con This is not an irony or tragedy of history, it's just the ism of which the hip community is often accused may thus wit dialectics of historical process. That it has so far been be much less the result of a principled retreat to cosmology SD: unsurpassable is in fact the essence of revolutionary social­ than of its flat inability to confront commercialism with a thiJ ism's general isolation to the backwards countries, or put deeply nonnegotiable demand. fier differently, this limit merely expresses the wedding of rev­ see] olutionary socialism to anti-colonialism, and on the other Second, even though the new anarchism is morally cor hand, its impotence in countries in which the industriali­ cosmopolitan-affirming in a rudimentary political way the avo zation process has been carried forward effectively (how­ essential oneness of the human community-its values are EitJ ever ruthlessly) by the bourgeOisie. The thesis of People's practical only within the Western (imperialist) cities, and the Park, rough as it may be to deal with both in terms of our are far from being universally practical even there. So the tradition and our current practical needs, is that the essen­ second and bigger problem the cultural revolution needs to tially post-industrial revolution, embodied most fully but overcome is its lack of a concrete means of realizing its sin "st WIe ti'" ' - ' .;;... inti ct asS1 c: arg .~'" CD leI E def ct ':0 me e Jar 'u'" ~ mll ct'" wa .... 0 thf ?i' ou ~ ::l rea 0 U Ma cel bel tm du

a~ COl tio bu suI

14 LI ideal sympathy with those globally rural revolutionary does not appear to think what we think it ought to think. movements whose social program necessarily centers around We have taken a class to be a thing, not a process (or as the need for industrialization, not the surpassing of it. A E.P. Thompson called it five years ago, "a happening"), solution of this problem would no doubt also solve the and have imagined it to be bound, more or less, to behave fust. This is why it's so important to subject the cultural according to the "sCientific laws" which govern the cate­ revolution to a much more profound and critical analysis gory. Most generally, we have imported a very loose and than what has been produced so far. For the point at the sometimes garbled theory of pre-industrial revolution, have moment is not to be for or against the current reap­ tightened it without really clarifying it, and are now in the pearance of anarchism. It will be necessary rather to process of trying to superimpose that theory, thus reduced, explicate its tradition (too many hippies think they are on our own very different situation. The RYM group does saying brand new things) and then to try to see if the not differ in this respect from PL, the Revolutionary Union, balance of forces . has changed suffiCiently that this old or even YSA or ISC. All these groups, opportunistic movement for a cultural revolution against industrial soci­ in widely varying degrees, claim to have the same ace in ety has begun to acquire a power which it formerly has not. the· hole, and Lenin's phrases (or what's worse, the Chair­ had. man's truistic maxims) are gnawed upon bv every tooth. Rr a long time I was baffled. Last fall the word began pe SDS Convention: I wasn't there, never mind why. to reach me: It was being said that I had "bad politics." At the last SDS thing I was at, the Austin NC, the How could that be, I wondered, since I thought I had no handwriting was already on the wall. Having determined politics at all. But by winter I conceded the point: no that SDS must become explicitly and organizationally politiCS is the same as bad politics. So there followed a committed to its version of Marxism-Leninism, PL would time in which I experimented with only the "mass line." continue in its Trotskyist way of identifying organizations Could Klonsky and Coleman be right? It didn't come to with movements and would try to win more power in much. My mind and my instincts only became adversaries. SDS-that much was already clear in the spring. I didn't By spring I had to deactivate, couldn't function, had to think, though, that PL people would force a split. As float. What I know now is that this did not happen to me fiercely indifferent to this country's general culture as they alone. On every quarter of the white Left, high and low, seem to be, I still thought they would understand a split as the attempt to reduce the New Left's inchoate vision to contrary to their purposes and would therefore seek to the Old Left's perfected remembrance has produced a layer avoid it, even if that meant a momentary tactical retreat. of bewilderment and demoralization which no cop with his Either I was wrong, or PL misunderstood-and misplayed­ club or senator with his committee could ever have the situation. induced. And my view of the split at .the convention is that it merely caps a series of changes which began at the East I want to make just one point about the current Lansing convention in 1968, with the decision to counter situation. What is wrong about PL is not its rigidity, its PL's move on SDS by means of a political form-the ''SDS "style," its arrogance or anything like that. Its ideology is caucus," i.e., a countervailing faction-which accepted wrong. And not just in the particulars of emphasis or implicitly PL's equation of the social movement with the interpretation or application, but in its most fundamental organizations that arise within it. What walked out of the assumptions about the historical process. Someone else may Coliseum was simply a larger version of 1968's SDS caucus. argue that PL's Marxism-Leninism is a bad Marxism­ Certainly it had grown in awareness and self-definition over Leninism, and that is a view which can doubtless be the year; and knowing that bare opposition to PL is . no defended. But I see no prosperity in the approach that very impressive gift to The Revolution, it had spurred itself merely wants to save Leninism from Milt Rosen here and to produce an independent Marxist-Leninist analysis and at Jared Israel there. The problem is deeper and the task least the semblance of a program. My unhappy wager is much more demanding. It can be posed this way: Back­ that even in its RYM incarnation it remains a faction, that wards as it is, our practice is more advanced than our it will continue last year's practice of "struggling Sharply" theory, and our theory therefore becomes an obstacle to against internal heresies, that it will remain in the vice of our practice-which is childish and schematic, not free and the old illusions, that it will pay as little attention to what real enough. The general adoption of some kind of is happening in the country and the world as its predeces­ Marxism-Leninism by all vocal factions in SDS means, sor regime did, and that whatever growth the movement certainly, that a long moment of intellectual suspense has achieves will be inspite of· its rally cries and with indif­ been · resolved-but much less in response to experience ference to its strictures. Nor is there a lot that can be done than to the pressure of the . tradition. We have not pro­ about this. The Western Left is perhaps in the midphase of duced even a general geosocial map of the United States as a long, deep transition, and there is no way for SDS to a SOCiety-only as an empire. We have not sought in the protect itself from the consequences. They will have to be concrete historical experience of classes a rigorous explana­ lived out. Which does not mean there is nothing to do. It tion of their acceptance of "cross

Liberation 15 The Panther Convention: It hasn't happened yet as I . not by nself a social program or a revolutionary slogan. ti write, and I have no idea what its outcome will be. But The irony is that nothing but a real social program, and the ti certain doubts still need to be aired. expanding base of involved, active, and conscious people What's 'good about the Panthers has been amply hailed such a program alone could produce, would ever make "a in the white Left: The Panthers have, in effect, done for Huey Newton's liberation even thinkable, never mind the Ci the black lumpen of the northern urban ghetto what SNCC, means. n years ago, did for the black serfs of the rural sduth­ "But of course this has all been seen by now." Has it? ti individual despair, given a historical interpretation, is The current Panther move to establish a white base of it turned into collective political anger. To the alternatives of support does not persuade me that it has been understood. tomism, crime, and psychosis, SNCC in the country and The Panthers are in trouble not because they have no white " the Panthers in the town have added the idea of revolu­ support, but because they have too little black support; not "S tion-ant-racist, internationalist, and socialist. because they have no white allies, but because, in the But taken all in all- and for forcing historical reasons virtual absence of a wide array of real activities, real social "S this is truer of the Panthers than of SNCC of 1960-64-this programs in the black communities, there is nearly nothing tl consciousness is a .Word without Flesh, and that's what's got that white allies can do besides pass resolutions, send rr the Panthers trapped in a blind alley from which the only lawyers, and raise bail. exits are either martyrdom or the "anti-fascist" popular a 5DS will have to · take its share of the blame for this. front which it is the apparent purpose of the July conven­ V tion to organize. To put it another way: The Panthers did Much more interested in shining with the borrowed light of not organize the ghetto, they only apostrophized it. So far Panther charisma than in asking all the hard practic~l .J as I know, the breakfast-for-children program represents the questions, much more interested in laying out the meta­ D physical maxims that identify the ''vanguard'' than in only serious attempt to relate concretely, practically, II assuming real political responsibility, this SDS, which so broadly, and institutionally to the black urban community Co as a whole. And it is very much to the point that the often chews its own tongue for being "petty bourgeois," ". most shamefully confesses its origins precisely when it tries Panthers have recently promoted the breakfast program as b so vainly to transcend them in worship of "solidarity" their most characteristic political act-at approximately the rr same moment that the super-militants are purged, the which really amounts to so much hero-worship. Bourgeois is as bourgeois does. Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, Mao, ir public making of fierce faces greatly cooled, and the gun f: Chou, Ho, Giap, Fidel, Che, Fanon: which one plowed a no longer presented as the leading symbol of Panther vi intentions. furrow, ran a punchpress, grew up hungry? That, in the fust place, ought to be that. Further, in the second place, s1 J;us is all to the good, but it should have happened long it is not lost causes, however heroic, or martyrs, however () ago. There ought to be dozens of programs like the fine, that our movement needs. It needs shrewd politicians 0 : e; breakfasts. Nothing else, in fact, gives stature, credibility, and concrete social programs. Not theoretical (really theo­ and social meaning to the gun; for the ghetto, as such, logical) proofs that The People Will Win in the End, but t1 neither can be nor should be defended. Only when that tangible social achievements now. Not the defiance of a PI ghetto is being transformed, de-ghettoized, by the self­ small, isolated band of supercharged cadre who, knowing organized activity of the people does its militant self­ they stand shoulder to shoulder with mankind itself, will defense become a real political possibility. I'm not saying face repression with the inner peace of early Christians, but that social organization must always precede combat a mounting fugue of attacks on political crime of all sorts, organization. If ghetto blacks were like the sugar proletariat on all fronts, at all levels of aspiration, from all sectors and of pre-revolutionary rural Cuba, and if the police were like classes of the population, so that repression can never rest, Cuba's rural guard, then the opposite would likely be true. never find a fixed or predictable target. Humble example: Even so, even if there is a proper analogy to the July 26 Yesterday's New York Times carries a full-page political Movement, what would follow if not the obligation not ad-the American Institute of Architects, it seems, has merely to challenge the police, not merely to engage come out against the war. What will the ,Panther or the militarily and escape alive, but in fact to defeat the police, SDS national office do? Send a wire? Make a phone call? to prove to the people that the tyranny cannot impose its Investigate the possibility' of a combined action? Try to will on the countryside by force? The essence of J-26 make two or three new friends in order to make a hundred politics lie.s in its valid presupposition of a popular will for or a thousand later. I guess not. For the AlA is as social revolution and in its insight that it was mainly their bourgeois as they come, awfully liberal, too. When even the common-sensical skepticism about overcoming the state Oakland 7 and the Chicago 8 are suspect, what chance does military machine that held the people back. a lot of architects have? So the architects will never hear With all respect for Cuba and the ardor of black what we have to say about the empire, about the houses American militants, I fail to see in the caste ghetto of an that are being built in Cuba, about what we take to be the industrial city anything like a political replica of the extent and causes of the present world crisis. countryside of a one-crop colony. The presence in the But this loss is presumably compensated by our clarity ghetto of the political gun meant a great many worthwhile, about the "vanguard." Clarity! Any close reading of the even invaluable things. But crucial as it is, "Free Huey!" is RYM's Weatherman statement will drive you blind. Some-

16 August-September, 1969 times the vanguard is the black ghetto community, some­ have here is a giganticized "labor aristocracy who are quite times only the Panthers, sometimes the Third World as a philistine in their mode of life, in the size of their earnings whole, sometimes only the Vietnamese, and sometimes and in their outlook ... [and who are] real channels of apparently only the Lao Dong Party. Sometimes it is a reformism and chauvinism" (Lenin, Imperialism: The High­ curiously Hegelian concept, referring vaguely to all earthly est Stage of Capitalism). On its face, neither view is silly, manifestations of the spirit of revolution. At still other but neither is one more satisfactory than the other. times, it seems to be the fateful organ of that radicalized Weatherman's refusal to settle for one or the other seems industrial proletariat (USA) which has yet to make its Cold to me to express a realistic intuition; but the problem is War-era debut. Mostly, though, it's the poor Panthers, not solved simply by asserting one theory here and the whose want of politics was never challenged by the few other theory there. They cannot both be equally valid. I SDSers who had access to their leaders; this appointment­ think the difficulty is embedded in the method of analysis: Vanguard to the People's Revolution-being, presumably, Weatherman takes class to be a thing rather than a process, SDS's to make-and one which is defended, moreover, in and consequently tries to treat class as if it were, in and of terms of a so-called revolutionary strategy (see the Weather­ itself, a definite political category. (That is, labor is fated man statement) in which the United States is to experience to be Left.) But Weatherman also has a certain level of not a social revolution at the hands of its own people, but historical realism, and this realism always intervenes (hap­ a military defeat at the hands of twenty, thirty, many pily) to obstruct the mostly theoretical impu}se-a kind of Vietnams-plus a few Detroits. social Freudianism-to idealize labor, to strip it of its historical "neurosis" by the simple and fraudulent expe­ But perhaps the ghetto=colony analysis means that the dient of viewing its neurosis as merely superstructural. In Detroits are already included in the category of Vietnams? other words, Weatherman's confusions and ambiguities stem In that case, for all real political purposes, (North) Ameri­ from a conflict between its model and its data, and it can=white; and the historic role of these whites, their comes close to escaping this dilemma only when it forgets "mission" in the many-sided fight for socialism, is most its static model of class for a moment, and gives freer rein basically just to be overcome. The authors of the Weather­ to its sense of history and process. At such moments, it man statement are of course perfectly right in trying to comes close to saying something really important, which I integrate what may appear to be decisive inte~national would paraphrase, over-optimistically no doubt, thus: "The factors into a model scenario of domestic change. From no labor force we are looking at today is not the one we'll see viewpoint can an empire be treated as if it were a nation tomorrow, and the changes it will undergo have everything state. But although they face this problem, they do not to do with the totality of its current and forthcoming overcome it. They might have said that the leading aspect experiences, which range all the way from the increasingly of the US industrial proletariat remains, classically, its sensed contradiction between the rhetoric of affluence and exploitation at the hands of US capital, and that it the fact of hardship to the blood and money sacrifices it therefore still embodies a momentarily stifled revolutionary will be asked to offer in the empire's behalf." But this potential. Contrarily, they might have said that what we ought to be said up front, and it then ought to lead to the

t; ~ c -g ..E « ! -i « b ~ t:.. ./ 0 u" ex most exhaustive analysis of the real, living forces that blacks. They are not just another part of the workforce, co impinge upon not just labor but the population as a whole. not even just the main body of the lumpenproletariat. Nor Everytime something like this starts to happen, Weather­ do they make up a caste. Industrial societies do not have, ad man breaks. off and reverts to its concealed paradox: the cannot afford, castes; castes belong to pre-capitalist forma­ su vanguard of the uS (Western would be better) revolution tions (or, at latest, to agrarian capitalism) and are in fact pe will be those forces which most aggressively array them­ destroyed by the imperatives of industrial organization. th selves against the US, those forces, in other words, which Obviously, blacks are assigned an important role in the are most distant from white culture. Thus, cause becomes US production-consumptionprocess. So were pre­ WI agency: the living proof of a need for change-the Panthers, revolutionary Cubans. So are contemporary Venezuelans. It pr the NLF, etc.-is defmed as the political means of change; The low-skill aspect of black production and the impor­ an almost absent-minded abstraction converts white tance of the credit and welfare systems in black consump­ th America's sickness into the remedy itself. tion constitute, in themselves; the leading features of a in The most succinct case of this kind of bad reasoning colonial relation to a colonizing political economy. It is in. I've heard came at the end of a speech Bob Avakian made therefore appropriate to see the black ghetto as a colony. th at the Austin NC. The racism of white workers would have to Thus, and true black nationalism (much "nationalist" rhe­ m, to be broken, he said, because, when the revolution comes, toric is merely a Hallowe'en mask for integrationist or even to it will be led by blacks, whose leadership whites must comprador demands) is necessarily anti-imperialist, and bl: therefore be prepared to accept. If this were only an could consummate whatever military or politICal victories it unconsidered trifle, it would be pointless to snap it up, but might achieve in the independence struggle omy through a an socialist development of the means of production. it appears to represent a serious, persistent, and growing pI; school of thOUght in the New Left. The problem with it is 2. No more than the struggle of the Vietnamese can be dr just that it implies that there could be a revolution in the the struggle of the blacks to play a "vanguard" role in the hi; absence of a profound radicalization of the white work­ problematiC revolution of white America. Vietnam and to ing class, in the absence of profound changes in the Detroit, the NLF and the Panthers, do not constitute the is political character of that class. What would make it means of white America's liberation from imperialist capi­ is, possible for white workers to revolt would also make it taL They constitute, rather, the necessity of that liberation. to possible-and necessary-for white workers to help lead that They exist for white America as the living embodiment of y( revolt. The very idea of a white working class revolution problems which white America must solve. There are, cc against capitalism that is, necessarily presupposes either obviously, many other sUch problems: the draft, high taxes, th than racism will have been overcome or at least that the inflation, the whole array of ecological and environmental pC! conditions· for that triumph will have been fmnly estab­ maladies, Big Brotherism at all levels of government, the be lished. The problem with this dreamed-of revolution will general and advanced hypertrophy of the State, the frac­ to not be anti-blackism within its ranks, but the anti­ tionalizing of the civil society. Most of these problems are sli communism of its adversary. "In revolution, there are no relatively diffuse; they are not experienced so acutely as th whites or blacks, only reds." the war or the ghetto risings. But they are still real to re But beyond this, Avakian (as with the Weathermen) people, and they all have the same general source in the th wants it both ways: blacks are a colony, on the one hand, hegemony of capitalism: What sets Vietnam aflame is the outside the colonizing political economy and set over same force that brutalizes the black population and pOisons against it; and on the other hand, they are in and of the everybody's air. empire's proletariat. In the fIrst mode, they press against the empire from a position which is outside it in every 3. The function of the white Western socialist is there­ it sense but the geographical In the second mode, they press fore, at this moment, to confront white America (white wi upwards against the bourgeoisie from within capital's sys­ France, etc.) with the truth about the problems that harass su tem of social classes. It is of course not impossible that it, to explain that these problems cannot be solved merely to these modes really do coexist and interpenetrate one by repressing those people in whose lives · the problems are bl another. In fact, it is likely that they do. But both modes embodied, cannot be solved by prayer or petition, and ill cannot be represented as simultaneously co-Ieading aspects above all that they cannot be solved so long as the means so of the black situation vis-a-vis white society. A white of production, the wealth of that production, and the in revolutionary strategy requires a decision as to which monopoly of political power that goes with those means th aspect is dominant and which secondary, as well as an and that wealth are locked up in the hands of the big so understanding that what is dominant nOw may become bourgeoisie. You would as wisely ask the bullet to sew up ci secondary later, may even disappear. . the wound it made as ask the monopoly capitalist to solve de these problems. The capitalist cannot do it. But the w: So-an attempt at a clarifIcation (which, as with certain socialist can. That is the point we have to make. of other points I've tried to make in this letter, I'll have to 4. The rebellion of white students is provoked most ar elaborate and defend in some other, more ample space): fundamentally by the general extrinsic failure of capitalist w 1. The persistence of integrationism, in a dozen dis­ production-by the fact, that is, that production has become guises, and nationalism's struggle against it, make a strong 80-conspicuously anti-social. This is what gives the student circumstantial case for the view that blacks are above all rebellion both its power and its very real limits. But this

L 18 August-September, 1969 extrinsic collapse has not yet been followed by an intrinsic we can presently transcend; it is set by the over-aIl collapse: the system of capitalist production is at the Situation, and it will only be lifted by a real breakdown r moment both insane and rational. If a failure of its within the system of production. Nor will the lifting of the administration should produce also an intrinsic collapse-if limit be the end of our fight; it will be just the possibility suddenly no one could buy and no one could sell-then the of its beginning. Meanwhile, there is no point in posing people of the West would come again to the crossroads of ourselves problems which we cannot solve, especially when the 1930s, and would have to decide again whether they the agony of doing so means, in effect, the abandorung 01 would solve their problems by means of war or revolution. humbler projects-"humbler"! ... as tor example, the It is at that point that the fight for the loyalty of the capture of real power in the university system-which proletariat will become truly historical instead of merely might otherwise have been brought to a successful head. theoretical, necessary instead of merely right, possible Just look: Very little, even inSignificant effort was invested instead of merely desireable. But no will, no courage, no in the idea of "student power," and the SDS leadership ingenuity can force this eventuality. If it develops, and if even debunked the concept as, of all things, "counter­ the crisis is prolonged enough for white American workers revolutionary." Yet we have just witnessed a moment in to grasp the need for revolution, then with the same which a few key universities very nearly chose to collide motion in which they change their rifles from one shoulder head-on with the State over the question of repression of to the other, they will simultaneously de-colonize the the Left. That would have been a momentous fight, blacks, the Vietnamese, the Cubans. the French-for at especially coming on the heels of the black campus insur­ such a moment, ~ll the old paralyzing definitions will die gencies. It's our fault that it didn't happen. The fault may and new definitions, revolutionary ones, will take their be immense. place. The world proletariat will have achieved, at last, its dreamed-of world unity. This possibility, this towering Tws was supposed to be about the future. Thousands of historical power, is merely the other side of what it means words later, I have still said very little about the future. to be a white American. But again: no matter how well it I'm not really surprised at myself, and I won't apologize, is organized or how combative and brilliant its performance but simply sum it up by saying that if SDS continues the is, no Western socialism has it in its power to force or even past year's vanguarditis, then it, at least, will have precious to hasten the intrinsic collapse of capitalist production. If little future at all. For what this movement needs is a you are an unreconstructed Marxist, you believe that it will swelling base, not a vanguard. come about sooner or later; if, like myself, you are not. Or if a vanguard, then one which would rather ride a then you don't know. It could happen: the market seems horse than look it in the mouth. One which wants students pale, inventories are large, the need to fight inflation in to get power and open up the campuses, blacks to win the behalf of the international position of the dollar may lead franchise and ,elect some mayors, architects to be against to harder money, more unemployment, and still further the war and advertise that fact in the Times, clergy to be slippage in demand; and if Nixon does not get the ABM, concerned and preach heretical sermons; inductees to dodge the whole system of the US Cold War economy will have the draft and soldiers to organize a serviceman's union, received an ominous if mainly symbolic jolt. My view is workers to have more pay and shorter hours, hippies to that if this process starts unfolding, labor will have scant make Pll!"ks on private property, liberals to defeat the need of student organizers, and in the second place, that it ABM, West Europe to escape NATO, East Europe the will actively seek the support of student radicals. The Warsaw Pact, and the global south the Western empires­ "worker-student alliance" will happen when workers want and the American people as a whole (by any means it to happen, they will want it when they need it, and they necessary!) to be free enough to face their genocidal past will need it when and if the system starts coming apart. At for what it was, their bloody present for what it portends, such a conjuncture, students will have a critical contributon and their future for that time of general human prosperity to make no matter what happens between now and then; and gladness which they have the unique power to turn it but their contribution will be all the greater if they will into. And for being still more "revolutionary" than this have employed' this uncertain threshold period to secure implies, let us confess that time alone will tell us what they some kind of power base in the universities and such other might mean. institutions as they can reach, and if they will have used Carl Oglesby is a former president of SDS and co-author the opportunities of their situation to take the case for of Containment and Change. socialism to the country as a whole, aware certainly that class implies a political signature, but just as aware that it Coming: does not necessitate one. It is mainly to the extent that the white movement has done just this, in fact, that it has been John Me Dermott of some occasional concrete service to the black movement, and the same will be true of any forthCOming relationship with a self-radicalized labor force. establishment critics Let me put this more bluntly. We are not now free to on vietnatn fight The Revolution except in fantasy. This is not a limit

Liberation 19 ~n """"""""""""""""""""·'"

iJ II fi s· k A New Sensibility Rooted in Rebellion c Jack Newfield c l p

rn ...... ~. of Associated American Artists i1 coming more conservative. I think that n this . is not so. What is happening is p that liberalism is becoming more cnn­ Ii servative. It is liberals who have been d responsible for the Vietnam war-JFK, a Humphrey, Bundy, Fortas, McNamara; rr liberals in the unions and party struc­ Ii ture (Carl Stokes, Bayard Rustin, a Adlai Stevenson, Gus Tyler, Fred Har­ tl ris) who sponsored Humphrey's nomi­ a nation in Chicago; liberals who If opposed the open admissions policy t for CCNY (Lindsay, Wagner, Badillo, c Scheuer); and liberals who have so far fJ refused to stand up against Nixon's fi New McCarthyism-the Chicago indict­ ments, the roundups of the Panthers, P Ii the police violence at Berkeley, the So Congressional paranoia about SDS. The tJ liberals seem willing to pay the ransom e of a little repression in order to get the II Movement off their backs. It is Edith b Green, RFK's manager in Oregon, who P is sponsoring the anti-student bill in here are three separate but related revolution in this country-the move­ the House. movements whose gains or setbacks ment to create new life styles, new over the next five years are important institutions, new communities. By this other developments make me II Two tl to me. One is the radical (not neces­ I mean rock music, Rat, Newsreel, temporarily pessimistic. One is the sarily revolutionary) political opposi­ hippie communes, the drug sub­ Movement's own penchant for elitist n tion movement developing in this cultures, street theatre, fllm experi­ bull shit. The Crazies breaking up meet­ p country, (by this I mean much more m enters, McLuhan, Ginsberg, Phil ings of I.F. Stone and Norman Mailer rr than just SDS or the New Left), in­ Ochs, Dylan, the Stones and Joe Hel­ only turns sensible people off. Ditto p cluding a variety of extra-parliamentary ler; a whole new sensibility rooted in the Living Theatre disrupting Paul insurgencies, many of which are single community, sensuality, rebellion, and a Goodman. Abbie Hoffman and Jerry SI r.; issue and reformist; the strike of black sense of the absurd. Rubin calling Sirhan Sirhan a "freedom hospital workers in Charleston; draft The third movement is the interna­ fighter" will not radicalize the Ken­ tJ resistance; the grape strike; the move­ tionalist drive against white, Western nedy and McCarthy activists, and call­ ~ ments among Mexicans and Puerto colonialism from Vietnam to Latin ing all cops "pigs" will not humanize so Ricans; the community control move­ America to Angola. them, either. The Movement has to n ments in the ghettoes; the GI organiz­ reach out more. PL's attempts to use to ing movement; and the growing revolt a. and take over SDS do not further a C of intellectuals against the institutions I now see several historical trends humanistic and democratic movement. jl of the military-industrial complex; as emerging that make me pessimistic, in These trends need to be combated V s; well as the Panthers, the ad hoc cam­ the short run about the fust two of without red-baiting and I was impres­ d pus revolts, and the full range of anti­ these movements. The most depressing sed by Staughton's piece in the June b war activities. trend is the atrophy of the old liberal­ Liberation, as well as by Bob Scheer's B ism. It is now a cliche in the mass essay in the July Ramparts. The second movement whose e, growth concerns me is the cultural media that the country is rapidly be- There is no revolutionary situation

20 August-September, 1969 in America today. To act like there is in the eye of the octopus. But patience Jay and the Americans and the Vanilla is to invite a police state. PL suffers is imperative. Fudge, can't compete with the Band from a malnutrition of reality. Their. and the Doors. Politics, for the young, strategy can' get some very good people of my long range hopefulness may come out of the barrel of an killed. It is counter-revolutionary, Pm amplified speaker. And all the socio­ derives from my agreement with the counter-productive. It is hostile to the logical pre-conditions exist-affluence, fundamental assumptions and myths of cultural revolution beginning in the the Movement. The country is in crisis. social mobility, the population explo­ United States. It is, in both theory and Youth is a new class in post-industrial sion-for the cultural movement to practice, anti-democratic. society. Wealth, property and income continue to spread. This movement The rising racism of the white work­ are unequally distributed. America is may not be explicitly political, but it ing class I would identify as the third rotted and doomed. Traditional liberal is creating and strengthening new negative trend. Despite the events in institutions (UFT, Harvard, Reform values and new life styles all over the Paris last spring, and mounds of SDS Democrats, Peace Corps, New York country, in any city that has a record literature I have read, I see little evi­ Post, OEO) cannot solve basic social store, in any high school that has an dence that white workers in America problems. And each year, the high underground newspaper. are immediate allies of a radical move­ schools turn out a greater percentage When Gracie Slick sings, "feed your ment (I cannot see the Teamsters of rebels and activists, heads and seek­ head," or the Stones sing, "I can't get liberating a building in sympathy with ers. The young will be a permanent no satisfaction," or Dylan sings, "I a Black Student Union). The elections and increasing constituency for radical­ ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no this spring in Los Angeles, Minneapolis ism. And if we can build new radical more," this gets inside more heads in and New York underscore this prob­ institutions and communities (publica­ middle America than any theorist of lem. The factory workers, cops, secre­ tions, movements, projects, new univer­ revolution. Sexual freedom, long hair, taries, steelworkers-the Wallace sities, organizations) they will not be pot, 'satire, tribalism, the breakdown of constituency-have legitimate fears and so vulnerable to economic reprisal and censorship-these are the vessels of the frustrations. I think we can talk use­ political repression as the Left was in cultural revolution that Richard Nixon fully to them about specific issues­ the 1950s. Biology and time are on the cannot stop. powerlessness, tax reform, hypocrisy of side of the Movement. As Hayden c. liberal politicians, aid to parochial often says, "We will not bury you; we L. et me summarize. The next few schools, bigness and bureaucracy. But I will just out-live you." We will get years under Nixon, Mitchell and Laird think it is a debilitating delusion to even with Sidney Hook through his will be very difficult There will be expect they can be quickly, or easily children. harassment and repression; the liberals recruited into a revolution led by The anti-colonial movements will won't have enough balls to help much, blacks who want their jobs, and by probably grow as time passes, although and the Movement's own violent nuts pot-smoking, long-haired students. I am hardly an expert in this area. But (or undercover police agents) will I am confident that the NLF will win probably give the liberals plenty of '71 et I think thereb. are hopeful cur- in Vietnam. Nelson Rockefeller's tour excuses for their caution. But if we rents on the margins of the society of Latin America underscores the deep survive this period, I think we have a that make me optimistic, in the long discontent there. These movements in good chance to achieve significant run, about the eventual fate of the the Third World will give increased structural changes in the society. Time political, cultural and . international legitimacy to those inside America who will prove the Movement's analysis of movements I cited at the start of this wrote and worked for the liquidation corporate liberalism, the univerSities, piece. of the American Empire. and Vietnam right. The older liberal's Things will begin to get better if we The cultural revolution is slowly lurch to the Right will fail, and they survive the next four to eight years of gathering momentiJm, reaching more will lose the allegiance of the best Nixon. We will win important battles, and younger heads all the time. Rock young; who joins the YPSL or reads the consciousness of masses of people and pop musicians like Dylan, Jagger, Commentary any more? I believe the will begin to change; the Movement-in Lennon, Ochs artd Zappa will become social conditions that create radicals­ some form-will become a serious alter· recognized as the most representative war, racism, hypocrisy, state violence, native in this country. But barring a voices of this generation, just as F. bureacracy, Puritanism, repression-will total economic collapse. or a war, I Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Salin­ continue. And each day, more and can't see a revolution. The government ger and Kerouac are now recognized as more young people in colleges, in high just has too great a monopoly on the literary Zeitgeists of their time. schools, even in junior high schools, violence, and the people are just too Records and juke boxes and FM radio will reach the point where they feel satisfied. The Movement will have to stations will continue to radicalize they can no longer conform to illegiti­ dig in for the long haul; decades of kids. And the kids can't be fooled by mate authorities who brutalize the best boring, gruelling work in communities. exploitative commercial schlock The parts of their nature. Being a radical here will be neither flin Che has bombed. Up Tight was Jack Newfield writes for the Village easy nor satisfying, since we are living also a flop. Just as schlock rock, like Voice.

Liberation 21 ·Beyond Old and New Left: .The Emergence of aThird Force James Aronson

I speak of the needless destruction and waste of lives, efforts and ideals, of intramural frustration and anger, and even of bitterness and hatred whose end product can only be division and iinpotence.

On the nighf of Lincoln's birthday, which seems to me of the greatest ly held convictions and impressions nine years ago, Louis E. Burnham, an moment. What I want to say has to do based on thirty years of involvement in associate editor of the National Guard­ with the saving of lives . like that of efforts to help present a r~dical alter­ um, stood at the lectern on a platform Louis Burnham; the stopping of the native for the United States. in a small meeting room in New Yorle. vast and reckless waste which goes on . The word "unless" encompasses a He was in the midst of a Negro His­ each year in this country and others, tory Week lecture to a predominantly and deprives the world of irreplaceable feeling not of despair but of dismay over the present state of the movement black audience on "Emerging Africa, help for the tasks which we have to and particularly the human exchange and the Negro People's Fight for Free­ do." among members of the movement. I dom" Burnham was black, and while DuBois spoke of the delinquency of speak of the needless destruction and this fact is not integral to this story, it the state, but even more of the delin- waste of lives, efforts and ideals, of in­ does have a bearing. His usually vibrant quency of individuals in the radical tramural frustration and anger, and voice was tired and his words were movement, of their lack of concern for even of bitterness and hatred whose slow. He said: "I know you get tired one another, of the failure of responsi- end product can only be division and of the continuing struggle sometimes. bility of man to man. I chose this epi- impotence. In this time of continuing We all do, but we must not despair, we sode in the life of a burned-out young political, social and economic crisis, I must not rest-too long. Tomorrow's black radical, and the words of a disci- new world beckons. Tomorrow belongs would venture this projection: Unless plined and sage historian and so- the state of mind of the radical move- to us." His voice faltered and he sat down ciologist whose life spanned almost a ment can .be oriented wholeheartedly to rest. An hour later he was dead of a century of the history of the world, toward the philosophy and achieve­ heart attack in the emergency room of because I believe the warning DuBois ment of humanist socialism, within the the Polyclinic Hospital, in large part a sought to sound still has not been American experience and requirement, victim of years of struggle and years of heeded. . and ever mindful of the movement's neglect of person. Burnham was 44, an In a sense, I have gone into the past relationship to the struggle for libera­ articulate and dynamic writer and to make a projection into the future. tion everywhere iri the world, five or speaker with a magnetic personality. Projections in themselves are difficult ten years hence the movement will be He was on the threshold of making his enough. For the radical movement to- precisely where it is today-sporadi­ greatest contribution to the black free­ day a projection such as is set forth in cally and courageously successful in dom movement in the fullness of his the title of this symposium is all but focusing national attention on the key maturity. impossible, given the lack of cohesion problems of our time, but essentially At a memorial meeting for Burnham within the movement and the absence unabie to extend its influence beyond two months later, Dr. W.E.B. DuBois, of clear analysis of the prevailing for- the righteous walls of its own making. then in his 93rd year, said: "I knew ces in the country today. I · refer to it This dismay has been deepened in Louis Burnham for 25 years. There are as "the movement," although I do not the days before this was written by the many matters of which I might speak believe that a movement in an organiz- mindless self-cleaving of the Students concerning him-of the work he did; of ed sense exists. In this framework, a for a Democratic Society at its conven­ the work he was doing at the time of more · appropriate question might be: tion in June in Chicago-an outcome his death; and of what he might have "Where will the movement be five or accurately (and I am sure reluctantly) done had he lived. Above all, none can ten years from now, unless ... ?" My forecast by Staughton Lynd in the forget his honesty and utter sacrifice. I comments here will be less a projection June issue of Liberation. Even the speak, however, only of one matter and more an expression of some deep- most sympathetic reports (the Guard-

22 August-September, 1969 ship, the movement needs symbols, my name exists as a symbol. I think that's a good thing." I think that's a poor thing. The pressing need for the movement today -much less five or ten years hence-is neither righteousness nor symbols but the introduction, teaching and training of political, economic and psycho­ logical humanist socialism in prepara­ ~r, tion for what may be a life-and-death . struggle with the forces of inhumanity that surround us. To permit inhuman­ ity to persist unchallenged in our own ranks is the surest way to self-destruc­ tion.

)fiS One can welcome and applaud the in revolutionary formulations of the new er- left as replacements for the reformist formulations of the old left, while at the same time deploring the romantic a rhetoric of revolution that permeates ay much of the new left. It has, to my 'nt mind, misled many young radicals, and Ige persons finding their way to radicaliSlll, I into mistaking confrontation with re­ nd action as the final battle between in­ American imperialism and the Ameri­ nd can revolution. We are a far way from ,se this condition. The American power es­ nd tablishment is worried, but it is enor­ ng mously strong; the potential revolu­ , I tionary forces are not organized, and !SS those segments which are organized · {e­ have no viable socialist program for Uy America. ve­ The main priority in building a re­ he volutionary force is the creation of a lt, movement which does not as yet t's exist-a movement comprised of di­ ra­ verse but cooperative elements, black or and white, Spanish-American, Puerto be ian and Liberation News Service parti­ di­ rant violation of a democratic constitu­ Rican and Indian, poor farmers, organ­ cularly) presented a canvas of hysteria in tion; there was apparently neither time ized workers, community councils, and bedlam that could only have ey nor inclination nor, in the last analysis, working separately or together, young Uy brought an exhilarating warmth to the opportunity to discuss-much less for­ and old, willing to accept a common hearts of the counterinsurgency plan­ nd mulate-a course or a program to enlist unity of purpose strong enough to ners in Washington and their branch di­ 19. the support of fellow Americans to­ create a radical movement which can visions throughout the country. ward the urgent task of altering the be a force for radical change in the life in The ancient and foul-smelling Coli­ American system. And finally there of the nation. Just as the gathering the seum was filled with screams and was an "election" to leadership of a power of an emerging American imper­ nts shouts and the chanting of slogans and man of undoubted courage but much ialism did its utmost to destroy a re­ en­ the raising of ikons to exorcise hereti­ less proven acumen and ability, who surgent New Deal spirit after World me cal devils; speakers degraded women as acknowledged that he was a "press­ War II, an entrenched American imper­ ly) sexual vessels in the image of the de­ created" leader whom the media had ialism will do its utmost to prevent a :he bunkers of the Bolshevik Revolution made a "symbol of the new left." movement from coming into being to­ the 50 years ago; half a convention hall Then, accepting his media-created role, day to project a revolutionary rather rd- was expelled by the other half in flag- he said: "The movement needs leader- than a reformist program. It will be as-

)9 Liberation 23 sisted in its effort if anyone group There is hardly any room for· theoretical literature of Marx, Lenin, seeks to impose its policy as the pre­ political cooperation on the Left Mao and Stalin, tracked down in tal­ vailing one for a radical movement, in at the present moment because mudic fashion to make a stunningly ir­ the conviction that it is the only "cor­ there are no politics of the Left. relevant point? The lessons of revolu­ rect" policy. The time will perhaps come, pos­ tions achieved have far more value for The history of the radical move­ sibly sooner than we think. But a radical movement than the romantic ment in the United States, and in just now the issues are ideologi­ rhetoric of slogans that have no bear­ many other countries, has been to a cal, and ideological problems can­ ing on the conditions of our life. great degree a history of foundering on not be solved by organizational There is validity to the theory of the rock of correctness. Developments makeshifts . .. What is needed­ the continuity of history. The pas{-its within the New Left in the last year de­ let us say it again and again-is positive achievements, mistakes, fail­ monstrate that it is clinging to the same clarity, courage, patience, faith in ures, victories-affect the present and, old left rock which it had condemned the spontaneity of rational and together with the experiences of the and promised to shatter. socialist tendencies in society. At present, help chart the course of the It is, for example, most unfortunate the present historical moment in future. With such knowledge will come that the Southern Students Organizing our country-"better smaller but· more careful critiques of the nature Committee, a modest and hard·work­ better." and direction of the radical upsurge of ing group, should have been dissolved Today, almost two decades later, the last decade ; with such knowledge, into the SDS on the eve of the SDS's there is plenty of politics on the left, projections become meaningful weap­ own probable disintegration as a useful ons in the struggle that lies ahead. It and the slogan might well be "bigger sad organization. The apparent reason was can also be of great help-on both and better." But Baran's cautions otl: that SSOC's policies were not "rele­ sides-in bddging the gap between the about clarity, courage, patience and era vant" to the stated national goals of generations. faith remain as valid as ever. Some of les: SDS. The policies of SSOC, however, these qualities can be achieved partly Attitudes toward the New Left pal were relevant to the requirements of through the study of history. It is a among the older generations in the ra­ ace the South. With a cadence appropriate pertinent and not at all condescending dical movement-and this inevitably to the South, SSOC was proceeding on dOl question to ask how many radicals takes a middle-class turn because the len the basis of its understanding of its re­ have a sound knowledge of the history radical movement of the 40s and 50s tio gion and its people to seek solutions of the radical movement in the United was liugely middle-class in nature- seem the for the region. It was tragic that it was States, of the Populists, Socialists and to assume either of two forms : sta forced to yield to the demands of the Communists, the isolated pockets of (1) despair at the unwillingness of most da~ absentee landlord. struggle through the McCarthy . era? New Leftists to adopt a single set of the This episode points two ways for a What about the New Deal and the be­ political and scientific ideas (as was the if radical movement: (1) to a patient and gii1J1ingS of the Cold War? I was some­ fashion in their time), and a defensive Ch1 painstaking road to organization, or (2) what startled in conversation recently attitude toward New Leftists who, with the to wreckage on the familiar shoals of with an activist in the black freedom Single-minded hostility, charge them ineffectual correctness. I do not believe cOf movement of the early 1960s, to hear with responsibility for the "mess" that stn that there can be an overall "correct" him say that the young black militants was the legacy of the New Left. This is tal< policy for a national radical movement coupled with disapproval of the new today except in the acknowledgement today, for the most part in the 18- to year~ld range, have almost no know­ "life-styles" involving sexual freedom, of the overriding questions of race and he1 ledge of the beginning of the student marijuana and drugs and bizarre dress; wa imperialist war. The fIrst objective, it black freedom movement in 1960 be­ (2) an uncritical approval of the New be seems to me, must be a working rela­ cause that history is not being impart­ Left and young people in general because led tionship among all groups and organi­ ed to them. "young people are the hope of the as zations which are potential participants What knowledge and understanding future, and God knows we surely have tht in sucn a movement, with tolerance, is there of the cataclysmic events in­ failed them." This attitude is a understanding and a knowledge of one volved in the Bolshevik Revolution and comforting one: It permits the older see another's problems and aspirations. the Chinese Revolution (tnere is more generations to acknowledge that the fes And, above all, a knowledge of history. appreciation of course of the Cuban younger generation has made them wh I am reminded of a remarkably Revolution, since it was closer to hand aware of the extent to which they have car clear and prophetic commentary by and had an immediate spiritual impact given up the struggle; then, having made rej, the late Paul Baran in a symposium on on young people)? Would it not be this noble acknowledgment, to continue rna "Cooperation on the Left" in the July more profitable and useful for radicals to remain nobly aloof, except perhaps un 1950 issue of Monthly Review. Dis­ to seek to comprehend the struggles, for occasional fInancial support. sO( cussing the "manipulative ability" of dissensions, betrayals and glorious But there is a "third force" both in tu~ the American ruling class to sustain the achievements of these revolutions, the older and younger generations with of decline of radicalism in the United rather than to wave little red books which I would associate myself. In this un States, he wrote: and invoke chapter and verse of the group, the elders-some of them wisely

24 August-September, 1969 n, 11- ir­ u­ )f ic .T-

)f ts iI­ :1, le le le 'e )f -,> >­ Courtesy of Associated American Artists [t saddened veterans of the New Deal, late programs and policies which may created the division in the fust place, h others scarred victims of the McCarthy attract their peers who do not as yet realize that their role in the struggle .e era-refuse to regard themselves as use­ have sufficient political and social un­ for black freedom is not to seek the less Or expendable, and have never de­ derstanding to join them. They do not protective comfort of the umbrella of ft parted from the actual struggle. They reject America: they reject the system the black community, but to work 1- accept the new life-styles without en­ and the symbols of the American es­ with white persons in the difficult task Y dorsing the use of drugs or the preva­ tablishment. They do not wish to iso­ of helping them to understand their e lence of pornographia as heralds of na­ late themselves as a sect, yet know stake in the struggle for black freedom_ IS tional liberation. They do not regard they may for some time to come be They are willing to work with black n themselves basically as culpable for the forced to suffer the slings and arrows people on the basis of understanding state of the nation and the world to­ directed at a vulnerable minority. and, when the time is appropriate, to .t day, any more than they would charge They understand the problems of join them in the common struggle_ ,f the present generation with culpability the generation gap, but do not reject Radicalism is our alternative for e if its efforts failed to bring about dialogue between the generations to America, young and old alike, and we e change. Rather, they subscribe to the ease the problems. They understand insist on the right-and the duty-to ar­ h theory of the continuity of history, re­ the psychological problems of their gue, plan and build for what Lynd n cognize their place in the continuing own generation-the seeking after idols, terms a "humane, democratic, libertar­ .t struggle, concede past error ' as well as the ego-drives, the frustrations and the ian" society, without interference from .s take pride in accomplishment, and seek search for identity that often lead to a those in power. If there is inter­ V to work with the younger generation, dead-end-and they try to deal with ference-and there will be-we will re­ l , heartened by the youthful surge to­ them in a spirit of fraternity. sist, but the resistance-if the move­ " ward radicalism. They hope they may They do not seek the destructIon of ment can be fashioned-will have the v be able to impart some useful know­ the university, but attempt to use the support of numbers and the essential e ledge on the basis of experience, even incomparable facilities of the univer· solidarity of participants in a common as they learn from the experience of sity, and the guidance of faculty mem­ effort. e the younger generation. bers who share their hopes and aspira­ A national liberation movement­ a Among the younger generation, it tions, to make of themselves better which is what our movement must be r seems to me, the "third force" mani­ radicals and ultimately better revolu­ -will not develop easily and without fests itself as a serious, earnest group tionaries. They do not have faith in cost. Fifty years after the death of 1 which fmds pleasure and love in the the electoral system on a national John Brown, DuBois wrote in his biog­ e camaraderie of the common struggle, scale, but understand that there is ut­ raphy of the Old Man: "John Brown rejects the bitterness and hatefulness of most relevance in the election of black taught us that the cheapest price to e many of their colleagues, and seeks to people to a board in a backwater Ala­ pay for liberty is its cost today_" s understand the forces at work in our bama county which allocates and dis­ Fifty years after DuBois wrote society by partaking in honest intellec.­ tributes food to hungry people. those words, the cost remains un­ 1 tual endeavor and the life experience They accept the division between altered. 1 of the community. On the basis of this black and white as a necessary con­ James Aronson was editor of the S understanding, they attempt to formu- commitant of the system which has National Guardian for many years. {

Liberation 25 Sil Bl m "1 jo jo

it III nl w

,~ I A iii TO '~ OJ .RECAPTURE pi in ti THE 0: " "o DREAM b Julius Lester II tl o a n

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mat we know as "the Movemene' had its beginnings in In America during this same period, similar tactics were .. the late 1950s. In Afroamerica the beginning was the 1956 being used, as pacifists in New York, San Francisco and . bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama in which a twenty':six­ oth6r cities demonstrated against the testing of nuclear year-old minister, Martin Luther King, Jr. introduced non­ weapons, the appropriation of monies for bomb shelters violent direct action as a means of attackIng the problem of and air raid drills in the schools. In other parts of America racial discrimination. The bus boycott was a sharp departure in a phenomenon known as the "beat generation" established political tactics for blacks. Until that time the psychic liberation zories in New York, Denver, New NAACP's approach of using the apparatus of the system in Orleans, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, saying that they the attempt to make the system work had prevailed and would not follow the "man in the gray flannel suit," that the NAACP had achieved a great victory in the 1954 life did not consist of the balance in your bank account, Supreme Court school decision. The South's reaction to the but in the values by which you lived. Supreme Court ruling was summed up in the new rallying None of us who were a part of those beginnings in the cry of the Confederacy-"The South Says Never!" And Fifties could have then p-redicted the Sixties. The Sixties Afroamerica watched black children being beaten as they represent one of the most fantastic compressions of poli­ entered · schools in Clinton, Tennessee, Brownsville, Texas tical ideas and action of any decade in American history. aa4 Little Rock, Arkansas. In response, the Eisenhower (As Jim Morrison of The Doors has pointed out: "A r.une did so little that it amounted to nothing. generation lasts only two or three years now.") To go from

26 August-September, 1969 sit-in demonstrations at lunch counters in the South to the complex than had fIrst been recognized. And on another Black Panther Party, from pacifist demonstrations against level, "the movement" had the power to unleash more than nuclear testing to a mass anti-war movement, from the it consciously intended. Indeed, one action set ·off a chain ' "beat generation" to a cultural revolution is a ten-year of other actions around the country. For example, the journey almost beyond comprehension. Yet, this is the 1964 MiSSissippi Summer Project was designed to organi2!1l journey which has been made. the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, to challenge the It is a tragedy of the Sixties that too few of us know Democratic Party delegation at the convention in Atlantic, the journey on which we have been. We refer to "the City, and to focus the attention of the nation on the state movement" as if it were a political monolith. But what we of Mississippi All of these objectives were achieved, yet the now call "the movement" bears little resemblence to what Summer Project served as the catalyst for other actioos we called "the movement" in 1963. In the early Sixties, that were not directly related to the desired objectives. "the movement" consisted of SNCC, CORE and SCLC in Thus, the results of the Summer Project can also inelu. Afroamerica. SDS. various socialist groups and peace groups the take-over of Sproul Hall on the Berkeley campus ~ in America. At that time if one wanted to be a part of 1965, the beginning of a black-white split in what was th.11l "the movement" one affiliated himself with one of those the "civil-rights movement," the beginnings of an all-black organizations. movement, which announced itself in 1966 with the Cry of Today, "the movement" is no longer an identifiable Black Power. These side results of the Summer Project in political entity, but we still refer to it as if it were. It is tum set off other actions. inore a socio-political phenomenon encompassing prac­ tically all of Afroamerica and a good segment of the youth ]h.mgs happened in the Sixties. We didn't make tltem of America. It is exemplified by the high school dropout happen as much as one action produced ten other actions . who knows why he's not in school, the long-haired youth (but the progression was geometric) and we were swept whose life is lived in the streets, college students, SDS along with it. By the mid-Sixties, it was practically impOll- ' organizers, winos, blacks in daishikis and blacks in suits and sible for an organization to· adequately control and pie· blacks in black leather jackets and on and on and on. actions which it initiated. And to tell the truth, we were I!O Indeed, most of the people who now consider themselves excited seeing so much happen, that few tried to control 01 to be a part of "the movement" do not belong to any direct what was happening. We were not concerned with organization. Instead, there are loose groupings of people being conscious of the implications of what we were doiq., around the country who share a common outlook, com­ We were merely conscious of doing. mon life-styles, and common aspirations. The nature of "the movement'" underwent a sulltl. What we refer to as "the movement" has become change in the mid-sixties. Until 1964, "the movement" had increasingly broad and more varied, not only in terms of depended upon its ' own people to carry information from. the people who were involved, but in its aims. During the early place to place. Meetings were small; "movement" publica­ Sixties it was easy to know what was happening. tions were few and people depended upon direct cont.ct ' "SNCC has organizers in Mississippi. They are organizing with each other to keep informed and' since there wert people to vote." There was a political goal and a means of always a fair number of people in motion, this was not reaching that goal. Yet, as "the movement" progressed, it difficult. However, with the Summer Project in 1964 ltid ' found that the problems it was confronting were more the murders of Chaney, Goodman and Schwemer, ;tke

Liberation 27 media became more and more prominent as the carriers of "movement" information. (One of the reasons the Summer Project came into being was an attempt to break the media black-out on Mississippi.) It had always played an uncon­ scious role in "spreading the word." A 14-year-old black youth who watched sit"in demonstrators getting. beaten in 1960 via NBC was 19 at the time of the Watts Rebellion, and he had been politicized by NBC, not by meetings, rallies or "movement" propaganda. And a ten-year-old in Detroit who witnessed Watts via NBC was more than ready two years later. ''The movement" took advantage of the media's new interest in it and began to consciously use and eventually depend upon the media to be the agent for information rather than upon its own people lind organs. And as "the movement" grew, it became so loose and ill-defmed in structure and constitutency that a press. conference was the most effective· way of communicating with "the movement." The media was also the principle agent of information m for the cultural revolution, feeding itself and making news W about be-ins, love-ins, hippies, rock groups, drugs, etc., and it took the Yippies to merge the cultural revolution with S( the political movement via NBC. Abbie Hoffman and Jerry re Rubin consciously used the media to transmit concepts of 01 the cultural revolution and to direct those concepts toward w political ends. They made their attitude as much a part of (v the information to be transmitted as their words and their w dress (which is also attitude). (Vito Battista, a Republican ra legislator from New York, is a good Yippie. Chairman Mao ra swimniing the Yangtze shows knowledge of Yippieism. be Khruschev banging his shoe on the table at the UN is a 01 Yippie elder statesman.) Abbie and Jerry used NBC to Because of the constantly changing nature of "the fa communicate with twelve-year-olds in suburbia, consciously movement", because the constituency of "the movement" re trying to give them concepts and models that would be an was constantly changing, we needed, by 1966, a history of kJ alternative to those presented by their parents and teachers. the previous six years, so that each of us would have some p; .& the fall of 1966, "the movement", which had once knowledge of where we had been, whether we had been t1: been composed of a few political organizations, was becom­ there or not (and no one had been everywhere). We still It ing a separate society, with its own newspapers, its own need that history, only now it must cover almost a decade. h; life-style, its own morality. It became like a huge river with It is in our history that we learn who we are. It is in our people jumping in at every point along its banks. Those actions that we learn who we are. If either element is is: who had been swimming in the river for several years missing, we become one-legged creatures on crutches, think­ A suddenly found themselves surrounded by hundreds of new ing that we are running simply because we're in motion. I m swimmers and while everyone admitted that there was a speak to a college audience and casually mention the tl: communication gap between the young and their parents, Freedom Rides and suddenly realize that most of those su few recognized that there was a growing communication listening were between the ages of ten and fourteen when Ie gap within what we still called "the movement." We used John Lewis stumbled from a burning bus outside Anniston, (f the same words and thought we were talking about the Alabama in 1961:. They do not know what I know. (And 1\ same things, but, in actuality, increasingly, we were not. because I am older, I lack some of the insights they have pi The political perspective of someone who has been in "the because they are younger.) The results of this become ti movement" since 1960 (and how many are left?) was, of painfully apparent when one sits in a meeting in 1969 and IT. necessity going to be different from that of one who fmds himself participating in a 1966 discussion. The reason­ f( entered in 1968. The viewpoint of the former was not ing and the arguments are the same. Only the faces are necessarily superior to · that of the latter, but the dif­ different. The question then becomes: does each generation ferences between the two had to be recognized and under­ have to cover the same ground for itself or can the. si1 stood. The "movement" veteran had a sense of "move­ knowledge of one generation be transferred to another? tt ~ent" history, having lived it. The "movement" neophyte Because a generation is now so brief, there must be a way. B did not. As far as he was concerned, ''the movement" "The movement" today extends from the ninth grader just o began when he became aware of it. entering high school to thirty-year-olds like myself to "old

L 28 August-September, 1969 ing in the communities is contrary to this. Leadership within the black movement is becoming more and more localized. Just a few years ago, that leadership was natIOnal in character, best exemplified by Stokely, Rap, and for a period, the Black Panther Party. With the development of strong local leadership, the nature of the black movement is changing. People are being organized around practically every conceivable issue and sometimes, from every con­ ceivable approach. Intense black-oriented education is going on within communities and once more, news of what is happening is being transmitted by word-of-mouth, not via NBC. This period of internalization is the natural one to follow the mass awakening which took place with the pronouncement of Black Power from 1966-68. The black movement is more alive now than it has ever been. It simply isn't visible on the six o'clock news, except when 14-year-old girls are murdered by cops in Omaha. The one very clear division which does exist in the black Courtesy of Magnum movement is between those who use a Marxist-Leninist men" like Staughton Lynd and Dave Dellinger and beyond. analysis (generally the Black Panther Party) and those who We must not become alienated from each other. use a "race" analysis. The Black Panther Party would say One of the tasks which must be undertaken in the that this is a political-cultural split, but many blacks from a Seventies is for those with the capability and experience to political background, i.e. involvement in "the movement" recognize that it is their responsibility to write and analyze pre-dating the BPP, reject both the Marxist approach and a our own very recent history. If this history is not written, complete "race" analysis. One of the most influential we will then leave the job to be done by liberal historians spokesmen for a new analysis based on black nationalism is (who have, in fact, begun) and the information which they Harold Cruse. His book, The Crisis 01 the Negro Intel­ will transmit to the future will not be the story of lectual and his recent article on Cleaver's second book in radicalism in the Sixties. Merely the liberal's story of the New York Review 01 Books are excellent examples of a radicalism in the Sixties. We of the sixties have suffered new approach to black nationalism and the · question of because we do not know the hi~tory of radicalism prior~o revolution. ourselves. And because we don't, we see the increasing The Seventies will undoubtedly see an intensification of e factionalism among political organizations and it's like the struggle between black Marxist and black nationalist view­ " re-playmg of a Grade Z movie. Because we don't even points. Because Marxism does not concern itself with the know our own history, we see SDS and the Black Panther question of race, its relevance to the black struggle is e Party repeating some of the mistakes SNCC made earlier in highly limited. Those who defme the struggle as a class 11 the decade. All of this is unnecessary, but it is happening. struggle are using 19th century concepts of 19th century I It will continue to happen as long as we do not know what conditions. Those who define it solely as a race struggle are happened in the Sixties, and before. over-simplifying the realities of the last years of the Twentieth "The movement" is no longer what it was when SDS Century. Sadly, the attempts by some blacks to issued the Port Huron statement or when the Jefferson come to a new analysis of the black condition in America Airplane used to perform in Golden Gate Park. Today "the and of America itself are being hindered by white radicals movement" has several diviSions, the most apparent being who are only too happy to proclaim any black the all-Wise the black-white one. Within both of these, there are Leader if he says that it is not a matter of race, but a class sub-divisions. Within the white movement, a division can be struggle. This enables white radicals to avoid grappling with loosely made between cultural and political orientations, the problem of racism, a white problem. Both white and recognizing that there is, of course, an over-lapping be­ black Marxists make the remarkable assumption that if one tween the two. This is a division between the . "street is a Marxist one is automatically not a racist. No. One people" and those of a more traditional political orienta­ merely becomes a Marxist racist and racism under any tion, e.g. SDS, PLP, SWP, etc. (Within the latter, there are name smells as bad. A radical "cracker" is still a "cracker." many divisions and factions, and seemingly more, God If the white movement is to grow, there must be a forbid, on the horizon.) recognition of the fact that while racism proceeded from . capitalism, racism now has an independent existence. Wthin the black movement, there is no clear-cut divi­ Racism can exist within any economic system. The destruc­ sion between the cultural and political, despite the insis­ tion of capitalism does not mean the automatic destruction tence of the Black Panther Party to the contrary. While the of racism and many blacks do not think that the destruc­ Black Panther Party has national projection as the leading tion of racism can be delayed until after the revolution. organization within the black community, what is happen- The question arises, but can racism be destroyed under

Liberation 29 capitalism? No, but that has to be the priority. The white The organization begins to rule its members instead of the radical movement is infected with racism and any revolu­ members using the organization as a means to the end. tion proceeding from its ranks is going to have racism a means to the end. within it. And if there is a socialist revolution which has racism within it, there has been no revolution. Just a One of the important tasks of the Seventies will be to ,change in economic systems. The failure of the Black examine and evaluate organizations and if necessary, dis­ Panther Party and many white radicals to recognize this band many and create others. Our loyalties have to be to takes the political movement back to the days of 1964. We the struggle, not to any particular organization. Too many are not witnessing a radical coalition, but simply a new people hav~ left an organization and thereby, left ''the form of integration. And it has been given its validity by movement," thinking that an organization was synonymous SDS and other white radicals, not by the black community. with "the movement." There is a need for a new analysis. The quality of any Intense involvement with organizational internal affairs political movement can be no better than the quality of its can blind us to what we are supposed to be about-the ideas and the way in which those ideas are expressed. A creation of a society based upon values of humanity. Yet, political movement functions on the basis of revolutionary we cannot be the vehicle for the creation of this society concepts and revolutionary morality. In the past year, there unless we ourselves are in the process of being trans­ has been an alarming decline in the quality ' of concepts and formed. If we become narrow in outlook, if we refuse to morality within the political movement. When a hyena has be open to criticism, to new concepts, we become the been wounded, it will turn and eat its entrails. The political fascists we say we are fighting. If we become so self­ movement which began in the late Fifties and came to righteous and self-important that we talk to no one and fruition in the Sixties had a clear concept of where it was listen to no one who does not agree with the way we view going and some idea of how to go there. Yet, the further it the world, we are even less than those we are allegedly • went, the more aware it became of the complexities of the fighting because we are supposed to know better. If we Ii problems and the less apparent were the solutions. The continue to substitute the waving of the little red book for more complex the problems appeared, the more the politi­ thought, if we continue to substitute the screaming of cal movem~nt turned to solutions others had used with slogans for ideology, if we continue to divide and fight success, namely, Marxism-Leninism. While these solutions among ourselves, then "the movement" of the Seventies worked for other people, there was little questioning as to will be comprised of bitter, disillusioned idealists who lost what degree, if and how these solutions might work in the dream. America. The ways in which Ho, Mao anct Fidel each used We must not mistake an organization, a gun, or even an ~ Bf Marxism-Leninism in different ways to sutt"their particular ideology for the revolution. They are only means toward it. Revolution is first and foremost a question of morality, a left problems was over-looked and the fact that they used recog question of values, a question of the inner life of people. If Marxism-Leninism became all important. The result has ters i we lose sight of this, we can create a society in which been an ever-iilcreasing 'factionalism within the political cal VI everyone is well-fed, well-clothed, well-housed, and find a movement, with each side saying it represents the one, true an l new generation of the young rising up and saying, "We approach and throwing epithets of "counter-revolutionary" regio) want the world and we want it NOW!" back and forth like the Chicago police throwing tear gas tive We had the dream and we are losing it. If we can regain cannisters. He who disagrees with me is counter­ party the fervor and intensity of that dream in the next five revolutionary seems to be the current level of political to bl years, that will be more than enough. To create a society analysis and acumen. This not only creates dissension but and in which each man has the opportunity to love himself and is demoralizing in the extreme. Party thereby, the opportunity to love his fellows. That is the The political movement has become so concerned with whicl dream. Before ,we can create the revolution which ' will ' itself that it has ceased to grow. In and of themselves, Los . make real the dream, we must begin to create it among organizations are very dangerous things. They are begun as purgf ourselves. In the beginning it was easy to maintain the the vehicle for social change, for the revolution. After a all c( dream Now, because the problems facing us are more while, though, they unknowingly become mistaken for the are a complex than we ever imagined, maintaining the dream is revolution itself. Organizations have to have offices, print­ or de that much more difficult. Letting that dream suffuse our ing equipment, mailing lists, etc., and generally, it seems it is every thought, word and deed is that much more difficult. that the more the power structure moves against an Arne] organization, the more it becomes concerned with saving its Yet, that is what we must do, no matter how difficult it seri( becomes. Without the dream, there is no revolution. offices, equipment, mailing lists, i.e. in preserving itself. Its orgar principle tasks become paying the office rent and phone strug bills and getting people out of jail. And the more it is ideol attacked; the more it has only one issue to bring before Julius Lester is a long-time activist and author of Look poli! people-defend the organization. When an organization's Out Whitey, Black Power's Gonna Get Your Mamma and Tl overwhelming ' concern becomes its own preservation, it is Revolutionary Notes. pheff no longer waging a struggle. It has merely become an shocl employer with so many on the payroll and bills to be paid. High

30 August-September, 1969 Libel

L - /

IJ .! \ in defense of 50S Mark Naison

...,1 . -

Before we try to project where the -...... left should be going, · we'v~ . got to recognize that many brothers and sis­ Courtesy of Associated American Artists ters involved in the most serious politi­ cal work no longer think in terms of an all-inclusive movement. To the tuals such as Julius Lester, Staughton The explanation goes deeper than regional organizers and national collec­ Lynd, and Greg Calvert have publicly "paranoia," "guilt,' ~ or "youthful tive of SDS, the Progressive Labor bemoaned the movement's new harsh­ adventurism." Fundamental changes in party and all who share its opposition ness in rhetoric and insularity in prac­ the movement's political . analysis to black liberation struggles are traitors tice. To these writers, the ghost of underlie these shifts in strategy and and enemies. To the Black Panther "Stalinism" with its purges, its style. Many of the New Left's initial Party, Ron Karenga's US organization ponderous language, its racism posing assumptions have been exposed as illu­ which murdered two Panther leaders in as anti-racism, its vanguard pretensions sions during the crises of the past year. Los Angeles is a stain which must be and megalomaniac style-have come Through study, through struggle, purged from the black community at back to haunt us. After all the careful through the force of repression, we've all costs, Whether these factional wars efforts made to establish the left on a learned some basic political lessons. are a sign of the New Left's maturity fraternal, democratic basis,the leading First. That there is no significant or degeneration is open to debate. But radical organizations in the black and possibility that American capitalism it is an undeniable fact that as the white community seem hell-bent on will progressively reform itself into a American left has begun to emerge as a imitating the worst abuses of the old non-exploitative, socialist society. The serious revolutionary force, those left. election returns, the continuation of organizatioIJ.s in the forefront of the Those of us who are the "Stalinists" the war, the assasination of Kennedy , struggle are . beginning to draw sharp in this situation therefore have a lot of and King, the police riots in Chicago, ideological boundaries . around their explaining to do to people on the Berkeley and Madison, the brutal sup­ political work. sidelines. Why are we kicking people pression of the Panthers and black The speed with which the atmos­ out of SDS, waving red books, carrying student groups, and our growing phere of the struggle has changed has (or talking about carrying) guns, and (cumulative) knowledge about the shocked many long time activists. reviving tired concepts like the "van­ meaning of imperialism have left us Highly respected movement intellec- guard" and the "revolutionary party." with the feeling that there can be no

Liberation 31 such thing as a peaceful, democratic the initiation of armed struggle by Our new theoretical stance has been transformation of American society. black college students at North Caro­ criticized so hysterically that it has Every gain for oppressed or exploited lina A&T and Cornell, the three-month been hard to arrive at an objective people in the United States is paid for shutdowns of CCNY and San Francisco understanding of our mistakes in prac­ by greater exploitation of people in State by "co-optable" black students, tice in the last year. Vilified as "Stalin­ other segments of the American and the thousands of local struggles ists," "totalitarians," and "suburban Empire. The old conception of agita­ waged by black highschool students putchists," it has been tempting for us tors within the system is a bad dream. and working people showed all but the to regard any criticism as a betrayal of There are no more Radicals, only racist and the blind where the major the struggle, or the product of a Revolutionaries. internal challenge to American imperi­ starry-eyed humanism which expects Second. The idea that a new work­ alism was coming from . . All of these that a battle for socialism can be ing class of technicians, professionals, activities were inspired by a nationalist waged without corrupting many of and intellectuals will play the leading impulse,but it was a nationalism that those involved in it. But much of the role in the transformation of advanced was moving far beyond "Hate Whitey." criticism has been worthy of our con­ industrial society has been exposed as Under the leadership of SNCC, the cern. One point in particular is basic; cons a myth. This was the year we saw New Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement even if the shift in our political per­ sacri York City teachers strike harder and the Panthers, radical black spokes­ spective is correct, it has occurred so Unle against the black community than they men were showing how black power quickly that it has left our constituen­ expa ever did against the city, college pro­ could be combined with a class analy­ cies far behind. The political perspec­ will' fessors denounce student radicals more sis, and alliances formed with politi­ tive of this essay is shared by perhaps D passionately than. they ever did the cally conscious whites who respected 5000 people (although pivotal ones) left warmakers, and clerks, technicians and the black community's right to self around the country and their efforts at tran~ lower corporate personnel vote in deterlTWla tion. implementation . have. been clumsy at new larger numbers for Wallace than any pese theoretical insights forced a best. Both the Panthers and the Revo­ Pan social stratum except farmers. At the complete reevaluation of the left's stra­ lutionary Youth Movement Caucus in thro same time, disconte~ within the army, tegic thinking. For the first time in SDS have acquired the habit of liOn! the expansion of the movement in the recent American history, black and attacking anyone who disagrees with char high schools and community colleges, white activists began to pay serious them as counterrevolutionary. Such and the growth of wildcat strikes, and the attention to the problem of the trans­ practices· are particularly dangerous for the unprecedented cooperation of students fer of power, and have concluded that a revolutionary group. Even as we stanl and workers in the French general it is unlik.ely that socialism will come become more disciplined, we must be cati< strikes showed enormous untapped in America without destroying or careful to leave open channels within the potential for radicalism among less neutralizing the armed power of the the movement where people can make time privileged sectors of the working class, capitalist state. Given this conclusion it the transition from liberalism or aspe particularly the young. We began to is not at all surprising that the theo­ apathy to radicalism. mus see that much of the movements pro­ reticians we are turning to for guidance Any projection of where the revolu­ a fc gram and style, including its lack of are those who were engaged in the tionary left should be going in the con~ discipline, its endless debates, its practice of revolutionary struggle: next ten years must come to terms ousl abhorrence of violence, reflected the Lenin, Mao, Che, Lin Piao. Those who with this tension between openness and 1 class attitudes of students at the elite complain about the irrelevance of these internal discipline. If revolutionary the universities, and had to be changed as thinkers to conditions in advanced struggle is to succeed, there must be can the movement spread to less privileged industrial society ignore the metho­ cadre organization within factories, the ract sectors. dological contributions they have made military, the police and pivotal schools, and . fo;rd. We began to understand the in integrating theory, political analysis, communities and government bureau­ drar pivotal role that national liberation and military strategy into the Marxian cracies. These collective have to be shm struggles by Third-World peoples and framework. We are aware of the limita­ capable of iQitiating action to shut new black and brown minorities in America tions of Leninism and Maoism as down the economy and the state appa­ the would play in bringing down imperi­ humane philosophy, but they are the ratus, and to defend that action mili­ ovel alism. While Vietnam fought on, while only varieties of Marxism (there are at tarily or neutalize the state's military eirCl student strikes paralyzed Mexico and least 57) which have succeeded in esta­ response. But at the same time, these com Argen tina, while guerilla activity blishing socialism in an important poli­ collectives have to grow out of organi­ new Increased in Guatemala and Venezuela, tical area. For socialists who have lost zation which brings revolutionary poli­ rod the black struggle in America also all hope in the revolutionary pos­ tics to the people, which makes the tion attained new heights of militancy and sibilities of the electoral process or the transfer of power acceptable and grm political sophistication. The nationwide "mass strike," it is a perspective we are understandable, and provides for free the growth of the Black Panther Party, the forced to study seriously out of our discussion of the movements ultimate arti! emergence of revolutionary black cau­ very responsibility to win the revolu­ objectives. Consid~rable attention must take cuses among auto and transit workers, tion. be given in the future to ways of ity

32 August-September, 1969 Lib n IS 'e ;- 1- n .s ,f a

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Courtesy of Associated American Artists

consolidating mass support without white revolutionaries in the next ten sacrificing a revolutionary position. years is to spread the movement to the Unless vanguard cadres are constantly white working class. This has to be expanding the movement's base, they done in communities, in high schools will wither into sour terrorist cells. and colleges, in the army, and at the Despite its weakness, the American point of production. Any movement left has certain natural advantages in which carmot relate to the day-t~day transcending this problem. Many of the problems of struggling with scarcity, new Marxist~'tieninists in SDS and the and with the productive apparatus will Panthers have come to politics be incapable of developing a serious through involvement in "cultural rebel~ understanding of the operations of the lions" and are sensitive to the sweeping American economy, and would make a changes in the consciousness of black colossal mess if by accident it ever did and white youth that have occurred in come to power. But at the same time, the past ten years. They should under­ we cannot just jump into organizing stand the need to maintain the identifi­ with the idea of "learning from the cation of the revolutionary left with workers" or with the expectation that the liberating cultural currents of the once some mystical unit called the time, even as the parasitic and elitist "working class" is aroused, the socialist aspect of the culture are criticized. We revolution is a foregone conclusion. must make a disciplined effort to avoid The type of motion, the type of a formulistic approach to culture and caste. This involves two responsibili­ actions we organize, even around very consider people's inner needs as seri­ ties: a) To do all their intellectual and immediate issues, have to be of a kind ously as their material interests. artistic work in autonomous radical that generate revolutionary conscious­ This places a great responsibility on media (and contribute to their organi­ ness and an orientation toward power, the radical media. No other activity zational development) and b) To parti­ not just narrow class interest. In parti­ can play a greater role in counter­ cipate in collectives and mass organiza­ cular, white workers just like everyone racting elitist tendencies within the left tions in the local areas. Both of these else we want in the movement have to and we should look forward to its prinCiples cut through the dangerous relate to the international character of dranlatic expansion. The year 1979 division between critics and organizers the American political economy and should see nationwide revolutionary which plagues the left today (such as the special oppression of black people newspapers such as the Guardian and the incredible hostility between aca­ within America. Struggles have to be the Black Panther with circulations of demic "socialists" and movement acti­ sought, and education programs run over a million, the emergence of mass vists.) They should organizationally which challenge white nationalism, circulation left magazines, and the link art and theory to the construction which enable white workers, like the commensurate growth of community of new institutions. In the develop­ rest of us, to see their interest linked newspapers, fIlm groups, street theatre, ment of radical media, the revolu­ to a revolution which will use the rock and blues bands, and radio sta­ tionary left should be working to productive apparatus of America in the tions (licensed or underground) that "create the new society within the interests of all working people who grow out of local organizing. But at womb of the old." have been oppressed by American the same time, the revolutionary Local organizing should seek to fol­ imperialism. artists, journalists, and scholars have to low the same principles, but the task take special effort to avoid the mental­ (to put it mildly) will be more dif­ 1;t{at does this mean in practice? ity and practice of an intellectual ficult. The primary responsibility of First, that the primary focus be on

Liberation 33 orgaruzmg working class youth, parti­ reached, the politics of the revolution black and white, become accustomed cularly in areas where the black libera­ become clear in a way that can take us to the idea of struggling against the tion movement has begun to generate beyond the stage of the youth move­ armed power of the state will there be tensions. Blue collar youth and young ment. As struggles against the pigs any hope of a socialist revolution. Elit­ workers don't have as strong a commit­ and army are tied in with labor strikes ism by cadres must be fought at every ment to racism as their parents: they and protests against cutbacks in public point- without sacrificing the move­ don't have a mortgage to protect, a service (schools, hospitals, libraries, meM's politics. We must not allow the skill category to defend, or (on the welfare, public transportation) an revolution to be isolated from the mass cultural side) a depression psychology important political point emerges: that of the American people. of militant anti-communism. They see the economic squeeze on the working both a society collapsing around (arid Nne of this is going to be easy. We , class and blacks is part of a general have an awesome task: We must make on top of) them and the beginnings of crisis of imperialism; a crisis which resistance. Our role will be to pull a revolution in the heartland of the requires more and more pigs to keep most powerful empire that man has them into · that resistance through order. From there it's a question of actions which challenge the growing ever created, with an international poli­ power, ours or theirs. We begin to tical economy attuned to the tactics of militarization of the society and the work toward a point where every local deterioration of working class divide and conquer, a working class picket line, street demonstration, occu­ divided by deep racial hate, and an life. This means fights against curfews, pation, or defense action, will be pigs in the schools, plant speedups, apparatus of repression that staggers joined by people from all over a region the imagination. In ten years, if we are selloutr"union bureaucracies, roundups and where every step taken to repress for the draft, repression in the army. It still alive, we will have just begun to us will be met by the involvement of develop the mass support to be a seri­ means efforts to draw working class more and more people. kids into anti-war and anti-imperialist ous revolutionary threat, and we will we need to draw a network struggles-street demonstrations, cam­ ~d, be harassed and murdered and incar­ of . cadres and collectives from the pus take-overs, defense actions against cerated in an effort to stop us. We regional movements which begin to groups hit by repression. And it means have only to look at the Panthers to map out revolutionary strategy to extended efforts to ally working class know that the Man doesn't fuck define and develop the structure of the youth with black people aheady in around. Twenty Panthe!s dead, hun­ new society. These groups will prob­ motion-the Panthers, black labor cau­ dreds in jail on trumped-Up charges, ably only have begun to develop on a virtually all their local offices shot up, cuses, and black student groups-and serious scale in the next ten years, and . bombed and burned. We'll get the to explain how the black liberation there is great danger in their being same and more when we begin to build movement creates revolutionary pos­ created prematurely out of frustration support among- the people. It makes a sibilities for the entire working class. with the speed of local organizing lot of us hesitate, draw back from Unlike traditional "community organi­ work. But in a society with a repres­ politics. Is the revolution worth all this zers" we'll be rapping about imperial­ sive apparatus as effective as this one, bloodshed, all this risk? Is it worth the ism and the need for revolution from and with such a complex social struc­ faction fights, the sense of corruption the beginning. We'll be laying down a ture, it is in such collectives that the we feel as leaders or fighters, the ego strategy for a youth movement that basic framework of the revolutionary trips? Fzghts, and bringing kids in on their movement must be hammered out. But then we begin to think. About a perception of a totality of oppression. Specifically, the military aspect of South African native quarter. A Viet­ revolutionary activity and the co­ namese peasant scarred by napalm. A Secondly, we should orient our . ordination between white and black Bolivian miner. A university plaza in organizing toward the goal of citywide movements will have to be planned at Mexico City filled with dead bodies. Sic and regional movements as quickly as this level. Neither of these pivotal and kids on a roof in Harlem shooting junk. possible. For the next few years, much delicate tasks can be approached in a blood. An Arkansas prison farm. A toi­ of the revolutionary left's organizing completely open fashion. let in a Mississippi gas station saying will take place in neighborhoods. Still, these critical responsibilities "white only," Gary Indiana, Cairo, Illi­ Organizers will be moving into working only underline the need to have collec­ nois. Thirty-eight thousand dead boys. class areas and making their contacts, tives grow out of practice and in a One million dead people. American irn- , doing educational work, and mobilizing climate of widespread support. Th~ perialism. It's a real thing. Not just kids into militant action around local principles of armed struggle and alli­ words, not just pictures on a television t and national issues. But as soon as ance with the black liberation move­ screen. Not just a bad dream, but blood this organizing begins to take effect, ment have to be emphasized and prac­ and suffering and exploitation. connections should be made between ticed in all aspects of our organizing in When you face that fact, there ain't T various organizing projects, people strikes, mass demonstrations, and local nothing to do but fight. brought into each others struggles, and liberation movements like the battle Power to the People. effcrts made to plan strategy on a for People's Park. Only as large seg­ Mark Naison is active in New York Re· city-wide level. Once this point is ments of the working population, gionalSDS.

34 August-September, 1969 Lil :d Ie Q) Ie t- Y .~ !- .e ;s S

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't The Great Chicago Conspiracy Trial Date: September 24 Mass Demonstration in Chicago: October 11

;9 Liberation 35 Getting to Know Am erica Bob Cook Bob Cook taught sociology at Yale and is one of the founders of AIM in New Haven.

To be honest about the movement tacking militarism and who never shot man, the man of our land, we were draw and its future today is to be critical. I a gun in their lives. We hear college going to gain a greater knowledge of stude consider the last ten years in America freshmen at elite universities, just out the universal man. All the great master­ amor to be the most exciting politically of fancy high schools, talking about pieces of the past had been done in the since the days of Haywood and Debs. what the workers are "really like." We that way; beginning by knowing the siona The black movement, led by the older see revolutionary posturing not much national man." Closing with advice to from civil rights groups and white students, different from the posturing of the other artists, he says that ''you your­ we d and the anti-war movement, led by hippies, beats, or other bohemian ac­ selves must bring forth your art from conSt older peace groups and white students, tors. In effect; we have an intellectual­ your own land and your own people; the I are legitimate bearers of that heroic ization of politics in which words take you must extract it from your national toda: radical tradition which too few of us on a reality of their own, the result history. You must create monuments. char know is part of our heritage. But these being endless debates over "positions", But create monuments that are under­ lived movements had limited, while admir­ factionalism, and ultimately, isolation standable to your people, even though atmc able, goals. Now their remnants are re­ of the movement which engages prin­ this be only by means of emotion." has 1 grouping and purport to be revolu­ cipally in esoteric verbal "struggles". tionary; this is a broader, more serious been 2. Lack of consciousness of, rela­ Vietnamese Studies No. 15, there envir aim-as Carl Oglesby says. The differ­ In tion to and respect for the culture of is an account of underground revolu­ and ence between radicals and revolution­ mDst A mericans. It all began inno­ tionary work by Le Quang Ba, who theiI aries is that the latter are dead ser­ cently enough with white students later led the 316th Division of the wod ious-and for that reason the move­ going South, and coming back with the DRV army at Dien Bien Phu. He tells expe ment deserves our most self-searching stereotypes of the fat southern sheriff of this work among the peasants in the A analysis. and the beer-drinking redneck. (Re­ mountain regions, and how early the grou member all the folksongs, like "High organizers made the mistake of attack­ lead A revolution, as I understand it, is a Sheriff of Hazard" or "Mississippi Find ing people's superstitutions by throw­ are mass of people participating in their Yourself Another Country to Belong ing incense burners into the river, with own liberation and the transformation To"? Dylan alone saw through it, with which led only to big ceremonies to sons of their society, yet the basic criticism "Pawn in Their Game.") But we have beg the gods for pardon. Later, they have of our movement today is that it is cut come to the point where someone go­ were taught by Ho to respect local trap] off from the mass of Americans who ing to the SDS convention in Chicago customs; for example, not to cook hind must make the American revolution. does not want to drive through small beef with families that avoided it; to and This too, is part of our heritage, as a American towns because they are full spend the night in the fields guarding T result of the misdirection of the Amer­ of pigs! In a condescending manner the crops on Tet, when local farnilies tics ican left since the Russian Revolution. tha t has become, unfortuaunately, did not want strangers in their houses. desc Our task today is to locate the root typical; the movement champions na­ And Julius Lester has pointed out causes of our isolation and to eliminate tionalism in others (Blacks, Viet­ how ridiculous it would have been for theiI" them. As I see it, the key problems namese), while denying it to ourselves. SNCC organizers in the South to ig­ by 5 within the movement are: We are internationalists, it is argued, nore the local black churches, or, mov 1. The gap between rhetoric and re­ far above petty nationalism. Other re­ worse, to attack religion as the opiate year ality. To look at what we are saying, volutionaries know better. In a brilliant of the masses. exte in comparison with what we are doing, series of lect.ures, the artist David Yet our movement goes on ignoring class and even more important, with the Siqueiros spoke of the way the Mexi­ the history, customs, traditions, and outs world around is, is to see a discrepancy can muralists' work had developed as a real strengths of our people. lirnil so great as to warrant calling us almost result of their growing awareness of 3. The social composition of the be s insane, dwellers in a land of fantasy. the struggle of the people. While rejec­ movement. Underlying the above cipa: We hear calls for armed revolution ting false nationalism, they found faults, and the probable cause for step from students who have just been at- "that by learning to know well our them, is the fact that the movement line< L 36 August-September, 1969 Lib. {-,

Provincetown

were draws its recruits overwhelmingly from the future is a repeat of the fifties­ around movement institutions like e of students and university people and maybe with more violent repression. schools Or presses; others may be or­ ,ster­ among these from two special types: The alternative will require the courage ganizing ,committees in shops, neigh­ ,e in the sons and daughters of profes­ to flaunt established movement dogma borhoods, or vocations. the sionals, and upwardly mobile persons and to face the fact that the American One advantage of such groups is that :e to from the working class. Knowing, as people are today a long ways from they minimize the amount of time 'our­ we do, that social existence determines revolutionary consciousness. spent on internal organizational prob­ Jom consciousness, it should be clear that In effect, it will be necessary for lemS" since they are ' small and most >ple; the main perversions of the movement some elements of the movement to cut coordination takes place in a natural, onal today are a direct result of its social themselves off from the organized left almost instinctive fashion. A second mts. character. University students have and the student culture. They will have advantage is security, both fromexter­ Ider­ lived their lives in a sheltered academic to live, work, and struggle with the nal agents and provocateurs, and from mgh atmosphere. The main reality for them mass of Americans, at first to learn, left disruptors. Finally, they provide an has been the classroom, and they have oriIy later to teach. They will have to atmosphere of mutual support and been trained to perform well in that organize around what the people per­ trust which is essential to the psycho­ nere environment. Words for them are tools, ceive to be their problems-probably logical well being of individual organiz­ olu­ and their skill with words deterriunes not war and racism. Only by living ers. There should, and will be some who their position within the academic with and learning from the people will natibnal coordinating agency for these the world. The dominant quality of their revolutionaries be able to speak to ' groups. I doubt that it will take the tells experience is its very narrowness. them in a language that is under­ form of a party. It may be the resur­ the Add to that their social back­ standable. gent IWW, which has the advantage of the grounds: the families of professionals having been the greatest revolutionary lck­ lead special and privileged lives, and pe organizational form of the organization in our history. Or it may ow­ are taught to view ordinary 'people American Revolutionary Movement be an entirely new federation. ver, with contempt. Upwardly mobile per­ cannot be predicted, because it will The regular left will not, and should to sons, moreover, are just those who have to grow from the activity of the not, disappear. Student organizing, hey have been most adept at shedding the people as revolutionary culture again anti-war activity, non-violent confron­ >cal trappings of their class, at leaving be­ merges with American culture. As new tations, and so one will all continue to )ok hind their families, old friends, accent leadership develops among the people, play an important role in shaking the to and dress. new organizational forms will be conscience of America. But unless ling The result is an intellectualized poli­ created (this has already happened in some of us are out there talking and lies tics of gujlt on the one hand and con­ the black movement, fIrst in SNCC, working with the people while they're les. descension on the other. then in the Panthers). being shaken, they will never under­ out We know that men can determine It does seem unlikely to me that stand. for their own history within the limits set the new movement will be centralized, The new movement must, as WaIt ig- by social conditions. The future of the bureaucratic, or Leninist in form, part­ Whitman said of the new poetry , or, movement for the next five to ten ly because of the great diversity in "bend its vision toward the future, iate years will be determined to a large America, partly because the American more than the past. Like Americ.a, it extent by the actions of the ruling revolutionary tradition is primarily an­ must , extricate itself from even the 'jng class in America and by revolutionaries archist. In any event, for the next fIve greatest models of the past, and, while md outside of America. But within those to ten years, the movement will, I be­ courteous to them, must have entire limits, the future of the movement will lieve, be decentralist. The most viable faith in itself, and the products of the be shaped by the decisions of its parti­ organizational form for that period will its own democratic s pirit ove cipants. Unless some of us take radical likely be thousands of rather small col­ only .. '.. Erect, inflated, and fully self for steps to deal with the problems out­ lectives, or affinity-groups, carrying out esteeming be the chant; and then ent lined here, the most likely scenario for individual projects. Some may work America will listen with pleased ears."

'69 Liberation 37 Some Tasks for the Left Noam Chomsky

Dire warnings with regard to the state of American pe Senate Committee is surely accurate in remarking society are hardly confined to the left these days. Senator that domestic tyranny is a likely concomitant to the Fulbright has recently warned that the United States is effort by the "IGngly oppressor" to protect such delightful "already a long way toward becoming an elective dictator­ regimes as those of Spain and Thailand (and Saigon, and ship." If we continue on our present course, "the future Greece, and Brazil ...) from "internal aggression." We can can hold nothing for us except endless foreign exertions, expect, with fair confidence, that any serious domestic chronic warfare, burgeoning expense and the proliferation challenge to American global management or its ideological of an already formidable military-indus trial-lab or-academic underpinnings will call forth the repressive force and ulti­ complex-in short, the militarization of American mately the violence of the state. What we may expect, life .... If, in short, America is to become an empire, there then, is voluntary submission to the coercive ideology of is very little chance that it can avoid becoming a virtual Pax Americana arid its repressive practices, or the overt use dictatorship as well."l of force to compel obedience; in either case, a form of Senator Fulbright was commenting on an attempt to domestic tyranny. combat the erosion of the constitutional system, typical of The attempt to construct an integrated global economy all Western parliamentary democracies as centralization of dominated by American capital is one major theme of not power in the executive continually increases. The attempt post-war history. Though there have been setbacks, the vent: is embodied in a "sense of the Senate" resolution that was project proceeds apace along many paths, and no one can intel proposed by the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. . predict the degree to which it will succeed. Evidently, only hane Its report (April 16, 1969) notes that the chief executive certain forms of national development are compatible with able "now exercises something approaching absolute power over this aim, and American foreign policy has endeavored to mus· the life or death of every living American-to say nothing block all others. In practice this has often meant, in Joan and of millions of other people all over the world." It warns Robinson's words, that "the United States crusade against the : that in consequence the American people are threatened Communism is a campaign against development. By means war "with tyranny or disaster." of it the American people have. been led to acquiesce in the S The Committee's report recalls the fears expressed by maintencance of a huge war machine and its use by threat last Abraham Lincoln when President Polk "precipitated the or actual force to try to suppress every popular movement blac clash which began the Mexican War": "IGngs had always that aims to overthrow ancient or modern tyranny and shOl been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, begin to find a way to overcome poverty and establish Mor. pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the national self-respect.,,2 . the people was the object. This our Convention undertook to con: be the most oppressive of all kingly oppressions; and they J;:e maintenance of the huge ~ar machine has deeper two resolved to so frame the. Constitution that no one man social roots thim the need to protect the regimes of Greece, the should hold the power of bringing oppression upon .us." Spain, and Brazil from internal aggression. Even if Ameri­ tion The report notes further that there are 50,000 American can military support were not needed to preserve these Inte troops in Thailand, many "engaged in military support bastions of freedom, the militarization of American society iar operations against insurgency." It cites a classified memo­ would be unlikely to abate. The particular form of state­ gres randum asserting "that the presence of American Armed subsidized capitalism evolving in the United States demands trea Forces in Spain constitutes a more significant security guar­ substantial government support for technologically · ad­ and antee to Spain than would a written agreement." Since the vancedsegments of American industry. Under existing so­ ise only attack that threatens Spain is what is nowadays called cial conditions, with public policy largely determined by The "internal aggression," it is clear what form of "security" is private empires, it is naturally prepar~tion for war to which autl guaranteed by these secret agreements. the public · subsidy is diverted. With the best of will, it is ultiJ

38 August-September, 1969 Lib 1

popular support; coordinated counter-insurgency opera­ tions, as in Berkeley; criminal police violence against Black Panthers; harassment by quasi-judicial means; punitive sen­ tencing for minor violations; Congressional investigation of universities, and so on. Twenty years ago, the contribution of American liberal­ . ism to the repression was not small. One of the first acts of the Americans for Democratic Action was "to use guilt-by­ association tactics by printing in major urban newspapers the names of the Progressive Party's principal contributors and then listing the organizations on the Attorney-General's list of subversive groups to which these contributors be­ longed-or had belonged,,,3 this well before McCarthy got into the act. The hysterical reaction, in some quarters, to the revival of politiCS in the Sixties suggests that history may repeat. In these circumstances, even the defense of civil liberties has a radical content. ing the The best way to defend civil liberties is to build a tful movement for social change with a positive program that rod has a broad-based appeal, that encourages free and open can discussion and offers a wide range of possibilities for work stic and action. The potential for such a movement surely ical exists. Whether it will be realized remains an open ques­ llti­ tion. External repression is one serious threat. Factional :ct, bickering, dogmatism, fantasies and manipulative tactics are of probably a considerably greater danger. use A movement of the left should distinguish with clarity of between its long-range revolutionary aims, and certain more irrimediate effects it can hope to achieve. Specifically, for my us today there is no priority higher than bringing the of not easy to devise. alternative forols of government inter­ Vietnam war to a quick end with the withdrawal of all the vention in the economy that will not conflict . with the American military force. This may be a feasible goal. It :an interests of these private empires, but will rather en­ would entail the abandonment of a policy that has been illy hance them. Furtherolore, a public subsidy must be toler­ pursued for 20 years as part of a more general strategy for ith able to the population at large. Even a totalitarian state constructing an integrated world empire compatible with to must win some measure of popular support for its policies the perceived needs of American capital and organized in .an and expenditures, and "defense of the home" is invariably accordance with the dominant principles of American ideo­ 1st the last resort. A challenge to the system of preparation for logy. Nevertheless this particular venture could no doubt be "liquidated" without too severe a blow to the system­ ms war is not likely to be tolerated. fortunately for the people of Vietnam and Laos, for if this he Such a challenge has arisen in the United States in the were not true, there future would be dim indeed. I con­ :at last few years, largely from the student movement and the tinue to believe that nonviolent resistance provides the best nt black liberation movements. The rising wave of repression means.for achieVing this goal. nd should therefore come as no surprise. The editors of .sh Monthly Review have quite correctly noted the analogy to the post-war repression that helped to impose the narrow But in the long run, a movement of the left has no conservatism that has dominated American life for the past chance of success, and deserves none, unless it develops an two decades. It is typical of repressive regimes, throughout understanding of contemporary society and a vision of a ;e, the world, that they place their harshest and most reac­ future social order that is persuasive to a large majority of ri­ tionary figures in control of the Ministries of War and the population. Its goals and organizational forms must :se Interior. The . Nixon administration has adopted this fanlil­ take shape through their active participation in political ty iar practice (Laird and Mitchell). A bill now before Con­ struggle and social reconstruction. A genuine radical culture te­ gress proposes the establishment of a crime of peacetime can be created only through the spiritual transformation of ds treason, with severe punishments for those who give "aid great masses of people, the essential feature of any social .d- and comfort" to "any foreign nation or aroled group which revolution that is to extend the possibilities for human :0- is engaged in open hostilities" with American armed forces. creativity and freedom. There is no doubt that we can )y The implications are clear. But even without such "legal" learn from the achievements and the failures of revolu­ eh authorization, there are many early signs of what might tionary struggles in the less-developed countries, and it is ultimately become a police state, perhaps, with extensive would be as foolish to fail to do so as it would be criminal

9 Liberation 39 not to help where we can. It is evident, however, that their this system imposes towards maximization of commodities of ho experiences cannot be mechanically transferred to a society for personal use in place of the general improvement of the preser such as ours. In an advanced industrial society it is, ob­ quality of life. All of these are factors in modern life that will n viously, far from true that the mass of the population have should lead to the growth of. a vigorous left that seeks to tion ( nothing to lose but their chains, and there is no point in replace contemporary barbarism by some form of libertar­ most pretending otherwise. On the contrary, they. have a con­ ian socialism. But there is something insufferably arrogant ment siderable stake in preserving the existing social order. Cor­ about the belief that "we" are radical because we are level I respondingly, the cultural and intellectual level of any ser­ humane, and that "they" will join us when they see that it the S( ious radical movement will have to be far higher than in is in their self-interest to do so. Compassion, solidarity, dom. the past, as Andre Gorz, for one, has correctly emphasized. friendship are also human needs. They are driving needs, no Qu It will not be able to satisfy itself with a litany of forms of less than the desire to increase one's share of commodities scienc oppression and injustice. It will have to provide compelling or to improve working conditions. Beyond this, I do not econo answers to the question of how these evils can be overcome doubt that it is a fundamental human need to take an as fal by revolution or large-scale reform. To accomplish this aim, active part in the democratic control of social institutions. "total the left will have to achieve and maintain a position of If this is so, then the demand for industrial democracy "the honesty and commitment to libertarian values. It must not should become a central goal of any revitalized left with a betwe. succumb to the illusion that a "vanguard party," self­ working-class base. public designated as the repository of all truth and virtue, can In fact, in France and England there has been a renewed apera1 take state power and miraculously bring about a revolution interest in industrial democracy and workers' control after dentl} that will establish decent values and truly democratic struc­ a lapse of quite a few years.4 This is a most welcome trum tures as the framework for social life. If its only clearly development. It is often argued that the formation of anothl expressed goals are to smash and destroy, it will succeed enormous planning units-the centralized state bureaucracy, and a only in smashing and destroying itself. Furthermore, if a immense corporations, or both acting in concert-is a tech­ polar radical movement hopes to be able to combat imperialism, nological imperative, a requirement for economic health polar or the kinds of repression, social management and coercion and proper utilization of resources in a complex advanced privatI that will be developed by the evolving international econ­ industrial society. I have yet to see an argument that tion" omic institutions, it too will have to be international in its advanced technology requires centralized autocratic man­ popul organIzational forms as well as in the cultural level it seeks agement. The same technology that can strengthen the ers' c to attain. To construct a movement of this sort will be no authority of a narrow elite of owners, managers, or tech­ popul . mean feat. It may well be true, however, that success in nocrats, might also be used to extend industrial democracy . recen1 this endeavor is the only alternative to tyranny and disas­ In its early stages, the industrial system required the kind Scienc ter. of speCialized labor which, as Adam Smith pointed out, much ?ie' threat of tyranny and disaster, or even their early turned men into imbeciles, mere tools of production. Now ship ( manifestations, do not themselves provide a sufficient basis this is no longer true. With modern technology, tools can tion ( for the creation of a significant radical mass movement. In be tools and men can be men. The need for managers is a econo fact, this threat may induce a conservative defensive reac­ corollary to the specialization of the labor force. It dimin­ cratic tion. For a person to commit himself to a movement for ishes as the opportunities increase for each participant in radical social change, with all of the uncertainty and hazard the work-force to obtain relevant information when it is needed for decision-making and to achieve the cultural level ~ that this entails, he must have a strong reason to believe Arner: that there is some likelihood of success in bringing about a that enables him to take part in global decisions. Simula­ tion makes it possible to carry out certain experiments group new social order. This is not merely a matter of satisfaction which of personal, material needs, of narrow $elf-interest in the without suffering the cost of failure. Automation may provide the possibility to eliminate mind-destroying drud­ (as c( sense cultivated by capitalist ideology. There is, to be sure, tive, ; a justification for radical politics even in terms of se!f­ gery. To develop these possibilities in a concrete and de­ tailed form is the proper task for the left. It is a task that vity i interest in this narrow sense. The enormous waste of re­ in on sources that are far from boundless and the race towards can be carried out only by direct participation of manual and intellectual workers; it" should lead to blurring, perhaps invest mutual annihilation on the part of the great powers provide for, a a sufficient reason for a rational man to seek actively for to the disappearance, of the distinction between these so­ cial categories. goes ( some far-reaching alternative. Beyond this, it is by now sion j widely realized that the economist's "externalities" can no Wat can be plausibly argued is that planning is a "irnpl longer be consigned to footnotes. No one who gives a necessity in an advanced industrial society. One must, how­ be an moment's thought to the problems of contemporary so­ ever, bear in mind an observation that is put very well by tion l ciety can fail to be aware of the social costs of consump­ Ken Coates, in introducing a recent symposium on workers' growt tion and production, the progressive destruction of the control: "If planning has become a crucial need, then it has ever environment, the utter irrationality of the utilization of also become transparently clear that none of the most basic West. contemporary technology, the inability of a system based and elementary liberal values can survive such planning Su on profit- or growth-maximization to deal with needs that upon such a scale, unless it is arranged along lines which absurl can only be expressed collectively, and the enormous bias are inherently and profoundly democratic,"S The problem to m

40 August-September, 1969 Libej

L )dities of how to combine planning with democracy, and so to victims. "Look out for number one" is a prescription for of the preserve and significantly extend and enrich liberal values, demoralization, corruption, and ultimately general catas­ 'e that will not be solved on paper, but only through a combina­ trophe, whatever value it may have had in the early stages ~ks to tion of practical experience and intellectual analysis. Al­ of industrialization. Cooperation for the common good and lertar­ most by defmition, this is a task for a revitalized move­ concern for the rights and needs of others must replace the :ogant ment of the left, a movement that will combine the highest dismal search ' for maximization of personal power and 'e are level of science and technology with serious inquiry into consumption if the barbarism of capitalist society is to be hat it the sources and social conditions for creativity and free­ overcome. larity, dom. is, no Fe left has the inestimable advantage that it can hope Questions of this sort barely exist in the academic social to speak for humane values in opposition to the barbarous ,dities sciences. For example, the leading textbook on modern o not irrationality of a competitive society and to the autocratic economics describes th ~ range of possible economic systems rule of private economic empires, state bureaucracies, van­ ke an as falling on a spectrum with complete laissez faire and t,ms. guard parties, technocratic-meritocratic elites, or whatever "totalitarian dictatorsrup of production" as the polar cases: other monstrosities the future may hold. It will have to Icracy "the relevant choice for policy today is not a decision vith a exploit this advantage if there is to be any hope for a between these extremes, but rather the degree to which serious, anti-imperialist, anti-militarist movement with a public policy should do lessor more in modifying the Lewed broad base in the advanced societies. Consider again the aperation of particular private economic activities.,,6 Evi­ manifesto cited above. It defmes the primary threat of after dently, basic questions are begged by describing the spec­ come Communism, perceptively, in the following terms: "It has trum of possible systems in these terms. There is quite meant: (1) A serious reduction of the potential resource III of another spectrum that can be imagined, with democratic base and market opportunities of the West owing to the :racy, and autocratic control of the system of production as the tech­ subtraction of the communist areas from t4e international polar cases. Along this dimension, both of Samuelson's economy and their economic transformation in ways which lealth polar opposites fall at the same extreme point; both "ideal" mced reduce their willingness and ability to complement the private capitalism and "totalitarian dictatorship of produc­ industrial economies of the West.,,9 Evidently, this interp­ that tion" are forms of autocratic control, to be contrasted with man­ retation of the communist threat (which goes a long way popular democratic control of the economy through work­ towards explaining Joan Robinson's judgment, quoted above, L the ers' councils, commune assemblies, and other forms of that the American crusade against Communism is a tech­ popular organization that can be imagined. Similarly, in a campaign against development) will be quite compelling to racy. recent symposium of the American Academy of Arts and the rich, who will easily understand why our goal must be kind Sciences devoted to "Perspectives on Business,"7 there is to assist "the millliands of Calcutta, the peasants of Egypt out, much discussion of the matter of management-vs.-owner­ Now and the Indians of Guatemala [to] become politically more ship control (and the effect of technology on this distribu­ reliable and economically more cooperative members of the ; can tion of power), but no mention of the possibility that the ; is a free world community", able to exercise "the capacity for economic system might be brought under popular demo­ self-control, for rational and morally valid choices and for imin- cratic control. 1t in responsible actions." American dominance of the world it is 7J..e assumptions that guide the mass of scholarship requires such political reliability, cooperativeness, and level hardly differ from those expressed in manifestoes of the moral responsibility. For the wealthy and privileged, it is Ilula­ American ruling elite, for example, the report of the study easy to identify American dominance of the world's re­ Lents group on Political Economy of American Foreign Policy, sources with "the continued existence of human freedom may which identifies Western civilization with capitalist forms and humane society everywhere." This dominance is threat­ Irud­ (as contrasted to the collectivist denial of freedom, initia­ ened by forms of national independence or international l de­ tive, and progress) and defmes "the aim of economic acti­ cooperation that appropriate resources for the benefit of that vity in the West [as] the maximization of money income­ those who now "complement the industrial economies of the nual in one or another of its forms-by individuals through the West." This kind of "threat" should be welcomed and haps investment of capital or of labor on one's , own account or encouraged by the left, as should its domestic analogue. An : so- for, and under the direction of, others."s The document international movement of the left should aim, of course, to goes on, characteristically, to describe this particular perver­ reduce inequity. But this is to say that participants in such a sion in terms of universal ideals, We cannot be merely an movement, in the advanced countries, must be motivated by is a "impartial arbiter ... maintaining world order," but must compassion and brotherhood rather than mere personal LOW­ be an active leader in the struggle to save Western civiliza­ greed. In ,the long run, there is no reason why an equitable I by tion and the "universal ideals of human freedom, individual distribution of the earth's resources should lead to a decline ::ers' growth, and economic justice" which are expressed ("how­ of standard of living in the advanced countries, if it is has ever imI1erfectly") in the capitalist institutions of the combined with an end to the irrational waste and destruction 'asic West. of resources characteristic of the advanced industrial ning Surely this concept of economic man is a psychological societies. Once again, however, it is clear that a large-scale :tich absurdity which leads to untold suffering for those who try "cultural revolution" is a prerequisite-or better, a necessary lem to mold themselves to this pattern, as well ' as for their concomitant-for a movement of the left with solid roots in

~69 Liberation 41 , '

"

t~h~iogically advanced societies. The prospects seem to me good that the small groups engine vancel ; tllif, ;same considerations hold when we consider the that now exist can grow and interact with one another and domir Jl\atter of bringing the arms race to an end. In the with a political movement of the left that is rooted in ' 'the* · ened riear ' future it will no doubt be exceedingly difficult to many strata of American society. I think that for the and e brgan ize if campaign against militarism with support ,among present, the universities are a natural, and relatively favor­ radica ~)."ker's , Jechnicians, engineers and scientists, who are heav­ able place for such growth and interaction. There is sure to nifica ;if dependept on the military budget for their employment. be opposition to the development of scholarship and teach­ andn students at MIT succeeded in raising a serious ing that is not constrained by the dominant conservative ;WhencidiC,¥ As ; ' military research, the first reaction of the ideology. There will undoubtedly be an effort to repress chaue~e ; .~ achie, the university laboratories was to enter a the activism that is a natural outgrowth of serious inquiry. : lalW>I'll.irlOrt itL it de, : -li , .. fedtral courts to prevent MIT from dropping The universities have been highly politicized by the in­ , tWe, concr .t1ttY : ~tk. ' The response was not irrational; the New fluence of the dominant social institutions, the national state and the great corporations to which it is closely who ~ : ~~o~¥ provides no alternative sources of em- social , ~rif;~ S~ilr factors will make it quite difficult for linked. The natural conservatism of the facuIty will com­ bine with the political conservatism imposed by external have ~ets? : an'd many scientists, to dissociate themselves to tho fro11'1 "'therommitment to war and waste. If a radical move­ pressures to set up barriers to free inquiry. Examples of repression can easily be cited. Nevertheless, they should not appea ment hopes to make any progress among skilled workers, a far ~ngineeri ah.d scientists, it will have to persuade them that be exaggerated. It should be recognized that in any field, there is resistance to innovation on the part of those who engra their mort..,tun interest is outweighed by other factors, them ~ng thettl, th~ personal interest of every rational man in have achieved a certain staus and prestige. This natural resistance, easy to document, provides a kind of base line existt the cdlivetMon of intellectual and material resources to sciell1 t~le .Ads; more specifically, in halting the prepara­ in terms of which one must assess the actual political repression that exists · in the universities. My personal feel­ blue Uon'fi:)t Wl\t ·:'~t may well lead to a fmal catastrophe. The work talk fOr ta4iC'lls, in this case, is to develop concrete alter­ ing is that by this measure, which is the correct one, conn show how they could be realized under repression on political grounds is not extensive, at the ~tiV~ ~ an4 ; Jo conn ~e.t ~~ditions of social organization. Furthermore, moment. It may grow, but that is not to say that it will plica1 the psychotic world-view that has been necessarily succeed. For the present, there is no strong thty ~t ~~ba;t for i coR~~ ~ *b rationalize the race to destruction. They reason for pessimism, in this regard. of rt tty, l~ bring about a fundamental change of values, a n1ust' Of particular significance, I think, are certain efforts hom eOnuhltirient to general goals that will, once achieved, spell undertaken in the past year among scientists and engineers. volve '. end, fu'Hmperial domination, militarism, and oppression. For example, at MIT a handful of graduate students and succeeded, within a few months, in organizing a one-day to bl " A ' ~~ ago, only a visionary would have been able research strike that spread to some 50 colleges, and that led Welt to': ,,~emplate these questions. Now they are lively to the formation of active and continuing organizations of add" eJGd~ ones. The revisionist historians have succeeded students and faculty. This initiative grew out of a sanctuary 1 Be irt , .~ the illusions that dominated post-war scholar­ for an AWOL soldier, Mike O'Conner, which was held at MIT 2 "( ~~~fis such as the North American Conference on last fall and dramatically changed the political climate on the in l , u.tm ::AiiMiica, the Committee of Concerned Asian Schol­ the political climate on the campus, Yorl ars, , t~:;Vhion for Radical Political Economics, and many In some ways, the creation of a radical movement of 3 W others; ~e the potential to revitalize the professions and scientists and engineers is analogous to the organization of to c~tt('a radical intellectual culture with a broad base in 73. GI resistance. American imperial dominance is based as Left the uhi,t.~sities and colleges, with effects that will extend much on technique as on mass military force. As Franz of tl thrQiigIt",the media-perhaps newly created for this purpose Schurmann has rightly pointed out, "it is not likely that, -.the , !i&hoOl,s, communities and activist organizations of barring a major emergency, the United States could again 4 Se ,dliaftY ,ilirts.>Of course these professional groups have been and foot a massive army," and "aside from a few puppet states 91 ( . ridina :,~ Arest of a wave of political activism. Inquiry that such as South Korea, no country has been willing to iJ'treeUr : [the U.S.] must depend on technology to fight its 6 p , eoDd~e to ,challenge and innovation. In the absence of a wars."lO Furthermore, scientists and engineers are well ~ J! healthy radical political movement, the "softer" aware of the corruption of intelligence imposed by a sys­ 7 D 4iIe ' ,. " will ea~ily be subverted by social pressures, as tem so irrational that the majority of engineers are forced bt, ~i '; 9ften been the case, At the same time, a movement to accept employment with NASA, the AEC (in essence, a II " 'of left condemns itself to failure and irrelevance if it Ass( til,~.,; :, weapons producing agency), and the Defense Department. furt does not,' create an intellectual culture that becomes domi­ There is, therefore, symbolic significance in the fact that a "COl nant ; by virtue of its excellence and that is meaningful to successful movement of scientists and engineers has devel­ nee( the masses of people who, in an advanced industrial so­ oped, in part, from an expression of solidarity with a GI sam' ciety, can participate in creating and deepening it. resister. By means of such organization of scientists and iani:

42, August-September, 1969 Lib

,". ':. ~ . ., '.~ ';-- ., Courtesy of Associated A~~ ~"rti~ IUpS engineers, the system of subsidy to technologically ad­ and vanced segments of industry and achievement of global lin dominance through a subverted technology can be threat­ the, ened at its most vulnerable point, its personnel. Scientists vor­ and engineers can make the same key contribution to a : to radical culture-ultimately, a successful movement for sig­ ICh­ nificant social change-that they now make to militarism tive and repression. ress As already noted, it is inconceivable that the left can iry. achieve real success in an advanced industrial society unless in­ it develops the intellectual resources to provide plausible, Inal concrete solutions to the problems of our society. Those :ely who believe that these problems can be met only when lm­ social institutions are reconstructed along democratic lines nal have the task of showing that this is so. Potential solutions of to these problems are of limited interest when they merely not appear in technical monographs (though even this would be :ld, a far from negligible accomplishment). They must become Iho engrained in the consciousness of those who will implement Iral them and live under the conditions that they bring into ine existence. There are many kinds of interaction among ,cal scientists, engineers, technicians and skilled workers, the :el- blue collar work force, professionals and other white collar ne, workers, writers and artists, among all of those who must the contribute to a vital movement of the left. Some of these vill connections I have already mentioned; specifically the ap­ mg plication of modern technology to creating the conditions for industrial democracy and the rational and humane use of resources is one major task that lies on the immediate rts horizon. A serious mass movement of the left should in­ IS. volve all of these segments of American society. Its politics ItS and understanding must grow out of their combined efforts ay to build a new world. . '.,'.' ed ------FOOTNOTES .": ....<4.iJ of ry 1 Boston Globe, June 20, 1969. istand socialist governments. The capitalist elite : rni8kt IT agree with Stalin that egalitarianism is "a reacti~nilfY' p~tty. 2 "Contrasts in economic development : China and India", bourgeois absurdity worthy of some sect of ascqup;": (l 7th . he in Neal Houghton, ed., Struggle Against History, New Party Congress). The document goes on , ~o. in~~t. that w.it , York, 1968. must preserve the right to intervene in s'Upporl ~ of ': 'older I of ruling groups" who see "that their future i:ilde ~ i):4'.nce i lits : ~ of 3 Walter Lafeber, America, Russia and the Cold War, p. in alliance with the West ," unless the respon$le nii~c.1le i 73. See Christopher Lasch, The Agony of the American class elements have achieved dominance. We must' CC\ntinue: ' as Left, for a perceptive discussion of the "cultural cold war" to ensure that Western Europe and Japan re{~ain frOll¥ nz of the 1950's" "neutralism and pacifism"-in the case of Japan, oy makiitl It, "possible greater Japanese participation in the (\eyelop-~e, ,* in 4 See, for example, the new French journal A.utogestion of Southern Asia"-a non-negligible factor in the Wl~nam es and the publications of the Institute for Workers' Control, war, incidentally, We must combat irrationill GOinrfiuni$t 91 Goldsmith St., Nottingham, England. inspired land redistribution, as in Guatemala "Vfhere ::tas ia . to Iran) "nationalistic totalitarian or crypto-CDl1lmUNsr ~T to 5 Can the Workers Run Industry, Ken Coates, ed., Sphere gimes have nearly succeeded in consolidating "their rul' ~ , ,, us Books and the Institute for Workers' Control, 1968. (the reference is to Arbenz and Mossadegh). Ap, q: so 0,). : ts :11 6 Paul Samuelson, Economics, sixth edition, 1964. 9 There are three other aspects to this threat: '''A plamied disruption of the free world economies" ; the higher ~owth 's­ 7 Daedalus, Winter, 1969. rate of Soviet heavy industry (N.B., the date is -1955); "t}w' :d fact that Soviet communism threatens not merely tbe poli­ a & Woodrow Wilson Foundation and National Planning tical and economic institutions of the West bpt tl1e. con­ Association, Holt, 1955. Our humane values are illustrated tinued existence of human freedom and humane sQciety t . further, in this important document, in many ways. Thus everywhere. " a "constructive wage and social welfare policies are obviously " : .;.. ' 0; :1- needed" - why? : "to mitigate industrial unrest." At the 10 "The Nixon administration and the Vietna;n, ;,'ar," a same time it is necessary to combat the excessive egalitar­ paper submitted to the Stockholm Confer ~mce on \[~~~m, ' . Id ianism and social welfare legislation undertaken under left- May, 1969. . :"' .. ::.:'/ . •: ',t, :, ', " " ."~ " .: ."' ... .:.,.

9 Liberation Nxt February, on the anniversary the 193 of the fust sit~in, the movement will vision aJ be ten years old. One way to give lacking some shape in our imaginations to the in capiti decade of the 1970s is to try to assess A Program for Post-Campus Radicals the CIO the work of the decade almost over. Staughton Lynd how ral What were the strengths and weak­ surrende nesses of the political work of the the righ American New Left in the 1960s? their ra The most common criticism of the must als movement is that it has had no theory. cratic politicians in power in Washing­ can point to anywhere in the country. izers wh Liberals and radicals join in making ton. In a curious way, therefore, our the country. on mate: this criticism. Liberals speak of the "line" resembled that of the German I and others writing recently in tives, an, movement's mindless activism, its nihil­ Communist Party before Hitler's acces-" Liberation have dwelt enough on The ( sion to power, in that we, too, concen- ism, its alleged propensity to the sub­ the consequences for the movement of to be 0 "trated our political fire on liberals stitution of tactics for strategy. Many this fact that we agitate but do not of the rather than reactionaries (we heckled persons within the movement itself organize, we recruit but have no work utopian now echo this criticism, except that Humphrey and left Nixon alone). The for new recruits to do. As one young lutionaf) they use words like opportunism, ec~ phony ideas of liberal intellectuals, SDS activist put it recently, after a synthesi; nomisrn, revisionism, reformism. rather than the real power of corporate certain amount of frustration you perience My own criticism (and self

44 August-September, 1969 the 1930s failed to project a socialist which would from the beginning have June Liberation), Gary, Indiana and vision and so built orgailizations which, been implicit in their choice of corpor­ Oneonta, Alabama, as well as in the dra­ lacking this element, became partners ate targets. matic workingman's campaign in Laurel, in capitalism. This was notably true of In the movement today, people talk Mississippi, organizers are trying to the CIO. The war alone cannot explain of a dichotomy between the loose, build around the idea of taxing the cor­ how rapidly the new industrial unions non-ideological "movement" of past porations and using the proceeds to fi­ surrendered their independence, gave up years and the diSCiplined Leninist nance local welfare projects. Inter­ the right to strike in wartime, purged "party" which they hope to create. estingly, this was precisely the program their radical members. Much blame What I envision is a confederation of pushed by Stokely Carmichael and the must also fall on the courageous organ­ local mass organizations which will still Black Panther movement in Lowndes ttry. izers whose work laid too much stress be a decentralized "movement" but County, Alabama in 1965-1966. on material, achievable, short-run objec­ . in which will not longer be made up tives, and too little on long-range goals. on largely of students and other aca­ This is a very different style of The organizers of the 1930s tended demics. It will preserve the best charac­ work than that of summer projects for t of to be opportunistic, "economist." We terisitcs of the New Left of the 1960s students followed by fall national not of the 1960s have tended to be but overcome the New Left's major demonstrations. The historical prece­ lork utopian and adventurist. A mass, revo­ weakness: its on-campus, isolated, dent for that style is the Freedom ung lutionary socialist movement must non-representative composition. ;ra Summer and SCLC. Reversion to it synthesize what was best in both ex­ All over the country there are organi­ underlines the fact that those whose you periences. zers quietly resuming the long-term rhetoric is most revolutionary are still ake The new kind of organizer I am building of grass-roots organizations campus-bound. :elf. envisioning will build a new kind of which SNCC abandoned in 1966 and For people drawn to a politics of organization. ERAP in 1967. Some worked in SNCC t, is work rather than rhetoric, what are the ork and ERAP and doggedly continued after next steps? It might be fruitful to )lu- R the end of the 1970s, hopefully, those projects folded; some are South­ create a series of low-keyed occasions , a there would exist in cities and regions erners left without a regional network at which individuals and groups who md across the country organizations with by the collapse of SSOC (Southern Stu­ are committed to long-term organizing we these three characteristics. In · contrast dent Organizing Committee); many are in white communities come together to the to a cadre organization of professional women, concerned both to reach non­ share experiences. These gatherings, I ~sis revolutionaries, they would be based middle-class working women and to de­ would hope, would pass no resolutions, Jrk on mass participation. Yet, unlike an velop multi-issue programs; they may be make no decisions, start no new the industrial union or a Social Democratic NUC (New Universities Conference) organizations. In somewhat the same political party, they would n;ly tactic­ members teaching in junior or com­ fashion as the old ERAP, this informal to ally on direct action from below rather munity colleges; and some are members Jletwork would exist side-by-side with re­ than on the delegation of power to of the Resistance, now beginning to other movement structures, helping ith representatives. Finally, and particu­ work with young people off campus. working organizers to find each other md larly by the end of the decade, they There are common themes. For instance. and then to find their way forward Iys would explicitly affirm the socialism in Springfield, Massachusetts (see the together. :he ite ive ial in 'he lve )se en

~a-

,Os lft

~a- ih­ to ti­ ial of

;9 45 serted tl politics: that the from COl making drudgers such a hard-wOI But f ment oj must dr, ers and such COl inflation portatiol small-ow domina! entrepre operativi must in abandon while kl by instil Mud tional during twenty-j judged­ whether . now, ar of the creasing rather t write d tion, al were ff our ow: workab I W I business, religion, and the left major ' Arthur Waskow for the tical ( networ networ The D uring the past decade, the move­ First, as to constituency: during the two classes, and the movement is our de ment has managed to "organize" '70s the strongest bases for the move­ semi-consciously a twenty-fust century practic about 200,000 and to "turn on" at ment will almost certainly continue to post-"work" ( thilt is, post-drudgery) two-b most and for a moment about 20 be the new class-the information civilization in embryo. The classes odd to million Americans in the new class and owners, the students, professors, teach­ most hostile to the movement (except the under class. During the next ers, social workers, civil servants-and of course for the ruling class) have but to decade two million or so people must the under-class- the jobless and the been the hard-working people, the to be become the movement in the sense Black, Mexican, and Indian occupied nineteenth-century classes-the indus­ withot Bus that they organize themselves and countries inside America. They are in trial workers and the industrial "mi~ begin reaching out to turn on new motion for partly different reasons, dIe" ownership class of farmers and press, constituencies-in their own classes but it ought to be possible for them grocers. groups and in others. (With 2 million organ­ to stay in loose alliance. That is be­ Hopefully, the existence of a large head s ized, almost 200 million could be cause the necessity of drudgery and group of people who have explicitly SUppOI "turned on", at least for a moment.) the drudge ethic are weakest in these rejected the system of drudgery, as- do it

46 August-September, 1969 Libera

------serted their and others~ right to play to each other and to the straight making records, teaching children, run­ politics and make love, an

1969 Liberation sophical teachers, large buildings are ing the false distinctions between the taries must be able to keep the loyal­ avoided, and fusions of traditional and "public" and "private" governments, ties of their members strongly cOllUnit­ new religious ceremonies are sought restoring both to popular control. ted to each other, not to the govern­ that can address the traditional adher­ Where elections · were normal they ments they live under. By 1980 politi­ ents of each faith and embody its would be contested; where (as for cal asylum for example, should be a particular urgencies and history, while principal, police precinct captain, plant matter of course- extended not by simultaneously binding together the manager) they are not normal they governments but by the radical move­ radical adherents of them all. would be invented and strong popular ments of many countries whatever par­ bCkilY, Amencan society has some pressure brought to bear for the elec­ ticular movement is at the moment of Its strongest rings of protection toral victors to be seated under most pressure from its own around freedom of religion. (N ot that:: it But a movement party could hardly government. Even in calmer move­ is inviolable-but it is strong, certainly be electoral alone, and still reflect our ments, the actual physical exchange of stronger than freedom of ~xperience with direct-action politics. If people across national boundaries speech, press, and assembly.) For a a Radical Party precinct committee or should be much more highly deve­ guerrilla movement operating from workplace committee can decide to run loped than it is today (and transporta­ institutional rather than territorial a candidate, it might also decide to lead tion will be cheaper and faster), so enclaves, that fact suggests some spe­ a strike, a march, or a sit-in- and so that the radical movements can be cial tactical attractiveness in treating could whole caucuses, or the Party knit together not merely in theoretical ed our own religious impulses seriously. itself. For years we have needed to analysis but through personal connec­ Finally: a Party. How do we make reorganize ourselves from the ground tion. it, what should it be, how do "e up for every new effort- to run a If all this came to pass by 1980, I transcend the bitter conflicts between candidate we have made a Peace and should add, American (and probably Black and various versions of white, Freedom Party, for the same people to Soviet, Japanese, and European,) pacifist resister and revolutionary com­ hold a march they must create a society would clearly be in constant munist? I do not see how, during the Mobilization Committee. At the least a crisis- unless the Establishments had next decade, a Party can be anything broader electoral/non-electoral party taken the one major self-protective but a federation of caucuses, agreeing would keep alive the clusters of people option open to them and moved that could decide on the basis of a on a program where possible but swiftly to abolish their respective war • cheerfully agreeing to disagree when­ poli tical a nalysis, not simply on machines. (That would free resources ever the constituency of each dictates organizational inertia, whether the and energy to deal with insurgency by it. Certainly ethnic caucuses- Black, movement was ripe for a march, a sit-in, racing with a carrot at its nose instead Brown, and/or Third World, perhaps or an election campaign. of a stick across its back.) In the during the next decade a Jewish one, absence of such an "intelligent" perhaps one of explicitly Christian Mreover, our national Party could choice, the Movement will be facing a radicals; probably sexual caucuses; provide something the movement has very difficult non-pattern of repres­ probably class or occupational cau­ badly needed- a sense of national sions and victories. We need to ReceJ ( cuses (students; welfare recipients; "connectedness" ill between such examine much more carefully how to ett~r industrial workers); perhaps ideological momentary events as a Pentagon Siege, nurture a movement in jail- how even yonr rna "Isn'· ones (anarchist, pro-drug, Worker­ a Democratic Convention, a wave of to force the jails to be a more human student alliance). It should be fairly teach-ins, a Berkeley massacre, or environment in which it continues to "Sun ''WeU easy to agree that any member of the (even) a McCarthy campaign. It has be possible to think and organize-and Party could be a member of two cau­ proved far easier to do "local organi­ how to protect our victories, our careers.' cuses; that any caucus with, say, one­ zing" in one neighborhood when peo­ liberations of institutional or geogra­ This fifth of the whole Party membership ple there know that all across the phic space. it is aSf could veto a proposed party resolution country other neighborhoods are also sitting 0 mothers while leaving other caucuses wholly "locally organizing" for a national A fellow at the Institute for Policy little eJ free to support and organize around it end. The existence of a Radical Party Studies, Arthur Waskow's publications statistic: as their own. . would provide that connective tissue. include From Race Riot to Sit-In. Finally, the caucuses and local com­ than ev 1IV~at goal for such a party? Both mittees of a Radical Party should by fewer p electoral and non-electoral. Not just 1980 be in direct, constant and serious Coming: ties of I electoral for President and Congress touch with analogous movements in tion: tl and Mayor, but also for union shop the rest of the world. The contact essay on colleges steward and school principal-for the ought not to come through the an women many elected (or should-be-elected) national Party headquarters. If the droppec jobs in the "private" organizations Super-powers are ever to be broken, ernest mandel .recent I that also govern us. For a radical party transnational movements of students, are sea would be through its own acts abolish- clergymen, "Third Worlders," secre- Staughton Lynd studies compar:

48 August-September, 1969 Liberat I­ t­ I­ ~ a V :- '- f the education - ' ~.

of :./:'- ~:.. \ /: /",v,\~'f ,,';'~-, \ : \

Florence Howe

Recently, on a train, a Goucher College student met the women's salaries and rates of promotion are Significantly elit~ of a relatively new magazine. "Why don't we get inferior to men's. In spite of a century of sporadic hue and yonr magazine?" she queried. cry about women's rights, and in spite of our rhetoric "Isn't Goucher a girls' school?" about the equality of women, even in spite of the pill and "Sure, but what's that got to do with it?" the recent outburst of women's liberation groups, women "Well, we didn't think you'd be interested-it's about remain a passive majority of second class citizens. careers. " Our education is chiefly to blame, but of course after This is a perfectly commonplace attitude. Even in 1969, one has said that, one must add at once that education it is assumed that women who go to college are generally reflects the values of our society and is to a major extent sitting out four years of their lives before becoming wives and controlled by those values. That is to say that we do not mothers. During my nine years at Goucher, I have found think of our girl students as we do our boys-and this is little encouragement for any other view. Unfortunately, true from the beginning of their school years as well as on statistics bear me out only too well. Though more women to graduate school where women are openly discriminated than ever before go to college, and even receive degrees, against for reasons which I do not here need to list. What fewer proportionately go on to graduate school. The facul­ would happen to men if women were, indeed, allowed to ties of colleges and universities naturally reflect this condi­ compete in a system equally open to them? This is, of tion: there are' fewer women on the faculties of women's course, a rhetorical question, since it is not likely to colleges than there were in the 30's; the percentage of happen. We do know that white men, in our culture, are women on the faculty of the University of Chicago has by and large loath to compete with black men, and our dropped from 8% at the end of the nineteenth century to a friends tell us that women will have to wait until those recent low of 2%; and a number of university departments male racial and economic problems are solved. are searching currently for their token female. And as Economic and political problems cannot, obviously, be studies continue to show, when men and women of solved by educational institutions. But colleges can educate comparable education and experience are employed, their students quite deliberately to those problems, and

Liberation 49 even, if they will, to work towards their solution. Generally Milton's is a useful voice to illustrate the perpetuation Aboul speaking, the purpose of those responsible for the educa­ of woman's subordinate status in a form somewhat more Harriet ' tion of women has Qeen to perpetuate their subordinate subtle than Aristotle's. In fact, Milton is my favorite complex status. There is a hoary story still being told about the example of such a view, one that I fmd still dominant which W difference between educating men and women. It goes like today. To Goucher students, I usually say, study him Subjectil this: "When you educate a man, you educate an indlvidual, closely: he is the enemy. You must understand your enemy differenc but when you educate a woman, you educate a family." if you are to defeat him. Women are teachable, Milton Women Obviously, the story is meant to compliment women as says, though just barely and only under careful conditions. put it, traditional carriers of culture. But more to the point is the Certainly, they need to be observed and looked after role that woman is channelled into by her culture. The constantly or trouble may follow, as it did for Eve in the controne question of purpose in education is dependent upon a prior garden. But the order is plain enough: God teaches man includes I I WaJ notion of hierarchy. Put another way, education is pro­ and man teaches woman, just a bit of this or that, enough because phecy fulfilled: imagine Women educated for a push-button to keep her in her place. Milton's main idea is hierarchy: household and a consumer's life and you create institutions woman is subordinate in status, inferior in intellect, and and beca to effect that. To illustrate, I want to look at the views of even less reliable than man in matters of the heart. paperbac five men-I choose men because for the most part they have been responsible Ior our history and our education. In matters of the heart, Jonathan Swift has argued, either sex might claim distinction-for foolishness and First, Plato and Aristotle, who illustrate two poles: corruption. "I am ignorant of anyone quality," he writes the revolutionary believer in equality between the sexes in "A Letter to a Young Lady on her Marriage," "that is and the conservative believer in the inferiority of women. amiable in a Man, which is not equally so in a Woman; I do Plato, as revolutionary, writes in the Repu/:olic that, "There not except Modesty and Gentleness of Nature. Nor do I is no occupation concerned with the management of social know one Vice or Folly which is not equally detestable in affairs which belongs either to woman or to man, as such. both." If women are more full of "nonsense and frippery" Natural gifts are to be found here and there in both than men, their parents are to blame for failing "to creatures alike; and every occupation is open to both, so cultivate" their minds. "It is a little hard," Swift continues, far as their natures are concerned." He concludes, there­ "that not one Gentleman's daughter in a thousand should fore, that "we shall not have one education for men and be brought to read or understand her own natural Tongue, another for women, precisely because the nature to be or be judge of the easiest Books that are written in it. ..." taken in hand is the same." When he describes roles for Swift's remedy is to offer himself as tutor for the young women, he allows them "their full share with men" in all lady in question; in Gulliver's Travels, he recommends areas of life, "whether they stay at home or go out to education for both sexes. war." He continues, "Such conduct will not be un­ W"en I asked my students what they thought of Swift­ womanly, but all for the best and in accordance with the expecting at least some delight or surprise at his natural partnership of the sexes." Obviously, Plato's modernity-one sophomore said, "Why, he's insulting. I notions have not only not prevailed; they are hardly known didn't like him at all." She added that his attitude was today. patronizing and demeaning: "He doesn't care anything To read Aristotle on the same subject is to learn how about the girl. All he cares about is that she please her little a student may learn from a teacher. For to the husband. That's why he wants her to be able to read. So question "why educate women?" Aristotle would have that she can carry on a conversation with him." answered, "Certainly not." This is his key statement, from Marianne's sharp disgust surprised me and some of the the Politics: "We may thus conclude that it is a general law other students present. one of whom commented gently that there should be naturally ruling elements and elements and slightly in wonderment: "But that's just why I'm going to of won naturally ruled .... The rule of the freeman over the slave college and taking English courses. My boy friend is at sense a is one kind of rule; that of the male over the female anyone another. ... The slave is entirely without the faculty of college and I think that I should be able to keep up to his as lonl deliberation; the female indeed possesses it, but in a form interests and his friends. You know, I want to know what he's talking and thinking about." relatioJ which remains inconclusive .... It is thus clear that while society moral goodness is a quality of all the persons mentioned, students had in min'd a passage in which Swift Both there 1 the fact still remains that temperance-and similarly forti­ offers his young lady a rationale for the education of her women tude and justice-are not, as Socrates held, the same in a intellect: .,"to acquire or preserve the Friendship and might woman as they are in a man." Aristotle thus offers no Esteem of a Wise Man, who soon grows weary of acting the moral education to women. Or if we think of her in a category Lover and treating his Wife like a Mistiess, but wants a each. close to the slave's, only such education as will make her reasonable Companion, and a true Friend through every emineJJ more useful to man, her master. The defining of capa­ Stage of his Life. It must be therefore your Business to some ( qualify yourself for those Offices." That is, to function bility-or "role definition" -controls education. And Aris­ assertel interestingly for one's husband-or children. The question totle's voice has prevailed. He and the early Church fathers have 1 of self or vocation is entirely absent, as it is from the settled the non-education of women for nearly two natural thousand years. concerns of the majority of women in college today.

50 August-September, 1969 Libera.

------~~------!tion nore About a hundred years after Swift wrote his essay, Women's relations with their "masters," !lccording to Jrite Harriet Taylor and John Stuart Mill began a long and Mill, are unique for an "enslaved class," for two reasons; nant complex intellectual relationship, one of the results of their universality in time and space, their perpetuation him which was a book that Mill published in 1869 called The seemirlgly without "force." ''The subjection of women to emy Subjection of Women. Like Swift, Mill believed that sexual men being a universal custom," Mill begins urbanely, "any It on differences do not entirely, if at all, control the intellect. departure from it quite naturally appears unnatural." On ons. Women are not a separate and lesser species but, as Mill the other hand, most women accept their state. In fact, fter put it, they are a separate class or caste, created and "All causes, social and natural, combine to make it urilikely the controlled by men through a process of socialization that that women should be collectively rebellious to the power nan includes depriving women of education. of men." Thence follows an analysis by a "master" of the ugh I want to quote from Mill's book at some length master's point of view: "Women," Mill begins, :hy : because I think it is still the best single piece of analysis are so far in a position different from all other subject and and because it is his only significant work not available in classes, that their masters require something more from paperback. First, his argument about the alleged inferiority them than actual service. Men do not want solely the

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he Courtesy of Associated American Artists :Iy to of woman's "nature:" "Standing on the ground of common obedience of women, they want their sentiments. All at sense and the constitution of the human mind, I deny that men, except the most brutish, desire to have, in the lis anyone knows, or . can know, the nature of the two sexes, women most nearly connected with them, not a forced at as long as they have only been seen in their present slave but a willing one, not a slave merely, but a relation to one another. If man had ever been found in favority. They have therefore put everything in practice society without women, or women without men, or if to ens1ave their minds. The masters of all other slaves ift there had been a society of men and women in which the rely, for maintaining obedience, on fear-either fear of .er Id women were not under the control of the men, something themselves, or religious fears. The masters of women nlight have been positively known about the mental and wanted more than simple obedience, and they turned le moral differences which may be inherent in the nature of the whole force of education to effect their purpose. All a each. What is now called the nature of women is an women are brought up from the very earliest years in ry eminently artificial thing-the result of forced repression in the belief that their ideal of character is the very to some directions, unnatural stimulation in others. It may be opposite to that of men; not self-will and government III asserted without scruple, that no other class of dependents . by self-control, but submission and yielding to the III have had their character so entirely distorted from its control of others. All the moralities tell them that it is Ie natural proportions by their relation with their masters ...." the duty of women, and all the current sentimentalities that it is their nature, to live for others, to make

9 Liberation 51 t

(') 0c: •::l ~ 0 ~ pleads » bar,M § Db ~ distin( !. yet 0\ » 3 of ec( •... and a i ~ home. » essent ::l i since .. Aristo unCO Il basic what 1940' in the Fo writin coroIl Sons Heart McCa SirnOJ essay: Invisi. asked we h inferi girls I inevi1 classe some than the "pr01 lengt complete abnegation of themselves, and to have no life Mill concludes this section of his book by summarizing: the 5 but in their affections. And by their affections are "In no instance except this, which comprehends half the used meant the only ones that they are allowed to have­ human race, are the higher social functions closed against discu those to the men with whom they are connected, or to anyone by a fatality of birth which no exertions, and no stude the children who constitute an additional and inde­ change of circumstances can overcome; for even religious "SUP! feasible tie between them and a man. When we put disabilities ... do not close any career to the disqualified person in case of conversion." The remedies Mill proposes together three things-fust, the natural attraction be­ worn1: tween opposite sexes; secondly, the wife's entire depend­ are changes in law and the opening of educational and belie vocational opportunities to women. His ideal is "freedom ence on the husband, every privilege or pleasure she has evidf being either his gift, or depending entirely on his will; of individual choice" regardless of sex: "If the principle is deSC) and lastly, that the principal object of human pursuit, true, we ought to act as if we believed it, and not to carm consideration, and all objects of social ambition, can in ordain that to be born a girl instead of a boy, any more with general be sought or obtained by her only through him, than to be born black instead of white, or a commoner to tl it would be a miracle if the object of being attractive to instead of a nobleman, shall decide the person's position for 1 men had not become the polar star of feminine educa­ through all life-shall interdict people from all the more who! tion and formation of character. And this great means elevated social positions, and from all, except a few, joke, of influence over the minds of women having been respectable occupations." nizal acquired, an instinct of selfishness made men avail It is a pity to spoil Mill's peroration with a sour note, wee] themselves of it to the utmost as a means of holding but he makes, in the end, a nineteenth-century distinction parti women in subjection, by representing to them meekness, between married and unmarried women. Whatever her get submissiveness, and resignation of all individual will into talents and inclinations, the married woman ought to stay class the hands of a man, as an essential part of sexual at home- for practical reasons at least. No housekeeper can able attractiveness. replace her with economy and efficiency both. When he

52 August-September, 1969 Libe () o c: j pleads for woman's presence in the university and at the essay, "Men distract me." In fact, that was why she had bar, Mill is pleading for the unmarried woman alone. come to Goucher. In high school classes, Virginia became Obviously, in 1969 we do not officially hold to Mill's aware of her unwillingness to be herself: either she was distinction between married and unmarried women. And silly or silent. Here at Goucher, she said, she was able to yet our suburban style of life institutionalizes Mill's notion say what she thought without Worry about what boys of economy: by . the time a woman pays for a baby-sitter would think of her; Moreover, she was going to be a lawyer and a commuter's ticket, she might just as well stay at because that was the most "male" occupation she could home. In fact, though our forms may look different, think ·of. She wanted to show that she could do what any essentials have not been altered for the majority of women man could. If she could manage that, then she could be since Mill's day. And some beliefs about us harken back to "independent," and that, she said, was a meaningful goal. Aristotle and Milton, though now they are part of the unconscious of college-educated females. For example, the Vuginia is an exception. Obviously women go to college basic assumption about women's biological inferiority, dealt today in numbers that would boggle Mill's brain. But most what one might have expected to be a death-blow in the come without genuine purpose, or, when they discover 1940's by Simone de Beauvoir, comes to college annually purpose, it is in Mill's or Swift's terms. About halfway in the heads and hearts of freshmen women. through one term, my freshmen were talking about the Four years ago, I began to use as a theme in a freshman motivation of a character in a story by Doris Lessing. Joan writing course "the identity of woman." Some of the tried to make a point about the complexities of motivation corollary reading assigned has included D.H. · Lawrence's by saying that she had come to Goucher only because her Sons and Lovers, Elizabeth Bowen's The Death of the parents had wanted her to go to college and this was as Heart, Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook, Mary good a place as any and that for nearly a whole term she McCarthy's The Group, Kate Chopin's The A wakening, had been 'wondering what she was doing here, but now she Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex, a collection of understood what her purpose might be, not only here but essays entitled Women in America, and Ralph Ellison's for the rest of her life. The class hung on her words, but Invisible Man. In every class I have taught, someone has she grew suddenly shy of naming her discovery. Finally she asked, "Why are our books only by women?" or "Why do said, "Enjoyment. I think that I am here to enjoy not myself we have to read mostly women writers-they're always but life-and also later on, after I get out of college." Joan inferior to men." Even in something as simple as athletics, was in1mediately chastized for "selfishness:" "The purpose girls have been eager to point out that female swimmers are of life," another student said, "is to help other people." ineVitably inferior to male swimmers. Only once in all the Most of the twenty students sitting in the circle proceeded to classes I have taught did a student point out that males of take sides; a few tried to reconcile the two positions: some cultures, say Vietnam, may be physically "weaker" "helping other people" might itself be enjoyable." "If you than females of another culture, say the Soviet Union or enjoyed tutoring in Baltimore slums," one girl retorted, the U.S. And I have typically received lengthy essays "then you weren't doing your job properly." The discus­ "proving" that women must be inferior since in the whole sion raged as few classroom discussions do. I said nothing, length of recorded history so few have been truly great. At except at the end when we had to stop for supper. Then I g: the same time, I should pOint out that a questionnaire I commented that no one had mentioned, in more than an le used did not verify the impressions I gained from class hour, earning money or having an ambition or vocation; no st discussion and student themes. It was as though the one had talked about the fulfillment of her identity in 10 students answered the questionnaire in terms of what was terms of satisfying and useful work. The girls were not IS "supposed to be." particularly astonished; my terms meant very little to them, d at least at that time. The girls who were most numerous :s }he same split occurred with regard to the question of and most vocal were those who thought that "service" or women's social equality. On paper, the students indicated a d "helping people" should be performed for its own sake, belief in its existence. In class and on themes, they gave n because that was morally right, not as an enjoyable act evidence that they lived their lives in the chains Mill .s for the individual to perform or for any other reason. This described and analyzed. Their dependence on male approval :> is the woman-slave mentality that Mill was describing a came out particularly in discussions of coeducation, though e hundred years ago. . with varying degrees of openness and consciousness. Close r to the surface and freely aired was the question of dressing It is clear that a social order sends girls to college who 1 for boys. It was a relief, students said, to be able to live are generally unconscious of their position in that society. e whole days at Goucher in jeans and no make-up. And they And on the whole, colleges do very little to sort out the joked about looking very different-sometimes unrecog­ conflicts girls feel. How can they please themselves and nizably so- when they left the campus for a date or a please their (future) husbands and/or satisfy the demands weekend. Very few students said that they dressed in a of class and society? Their conflicts have grown sharper, 1 particular way to please themselves. Much more difficult to more fierce and destructive, since Mill's day. For women a get at was the deeper question of sexual role in the hundred years ago, the problem was to fight for the right classroom's intellectual life. I have had only a few students to an education or to be allowed to vote. Women have able to say, as one did this year, at the beginning of an these rights. But in fact a woman is- unless she closes her

Liberation send you thmk ot motherhl Vlihy answer, 1 thinking future eJ cracy. 1 rernarkat they anc intellecn dents, e, few mal, either th or the ' "passivit) promote conscio' overhean that pap you won I haVE because : Are we, become least an~ "critical students need wo be educa of a soc to spenc children compare, "work-id society g

But no do for tl of womE instant c If we co of hitheJ incoming tiply. As men on gestions as well ~ nature. eyes completely-pulled terrifically in two opposing direc­ present society is arranged, is an error. 1. Th tions. They are not parallel lines: marriage and career. On the other hand, her college education assumes that programl On the one hand, she is still playing with dolls, dressing even if she is not going on to a career or graduate school, engineeri to suit boys, and pretending to be dumb in a co-ed high she should specialize for two years in some particular area tutions t school class. She is still a continual disappointment to her of knowledge. The curriculum, moreover, doesn't help her example, mama if she returns from college each term without an to work out the dual roles she may have to assume, that is, school 0 engagement ring. She wants-and naturally so-to get mar­ if she is not simply a housewife. It assumes, largely, that large, th ried and have children. To assume that a career would not the problem doesn't exist. The curriculum is geared to proceede conflict with marriage and child-rearing, at least as our vocation, however narrowly conceived. An English major wiD into nw

54 August-September, 1969 Liberatic send you to graduate schools, for example. But nothing I can "male" careers. I do not wish to disparage this procedure­ ttunk of at Goucher prepared women for marriage or obViously it is usef1l1 that it continue-but by itself it can motherhood. do little more than to open doors for handfuls of indi­ vidual women, leaving the bulk of their sisters behind. y Mih do we educate women? Cynically, I niight Philosophically, moreover, it does nothing more than to answer, to keep them off the streets. Certainly, we are not say, see, women can be architects, if you, the male world, thinking of them even as we do think of men-as the will allow them to be. We know that already. future engineers and administrators of a complex bureau­ 2. The second approach is one that has come historically cracy. Then why design curricula for women that are out of the civil rights movement, and recently out of an remarkably similar to those for men? Why, especially when analogy to black and third world studies programs: the they and their teachers assume a lesser degree of serious development of consciousness about the psychology and intellectual commitment from female than from male stu­ sociology of sexual differentiation in western and other dents, even from those avoiding the draft. I have heard a societies. A freshman study program that combines litera­ few male professors at women's colleges candidly admit ture, sociology, psychology, and history, would usefully either the "ease" with which it is possible to teach women introduce the subject to students; inter-departmental or the "bore" it is. And women like me fret about the women's studies programs may be devised .or particular "passivity" of our students. But mostly we do little to courses (e.g. in the history or sociology of women) be promote a reawakening or an altering of students' or faculty's added to existing departmental offerings. I value this consciousness. "The.re, there ," one professor was curricular direction because it calls not for competition overheard saying to a weeping freshman, "don't cry about with men but for the growth of understanding by both that paper. In a few years, you'll be washing dishes and men and women about how society is arranged. Such you won't even remember this course.!' understanding is essential to intelligent action for social I have spent a lot of time on the purpose of education change as opposed to individual advancement. because I think that we must be conscious of our motives. 3. The third suggestion would commit the institution to Are we , as one student put it recently, educating girls to educate· the rest of its members. That is, the administration become "critical housewives?" I for one am not, not ·at of a college, the procedures and literature of its admissions least any more than Hopkins' professors are educating or vocational placement offices, for example, ought to "critical husbands." We can do better than that for our reflect a conscious militancy about the education of students and I think we should. Women and men both women. The education of faculty members and admini­ need work lives and private relationships. Women need to strators, male and female together, would support and be educated for consciousness about themselves as members promote the curricular program suggested for students. of a society they can learn to change. Even if women are Such a program would not be easy to arrange. It is to spend some years of their lives at home with small difficult, in reality, for men to see women as their replace­ children part or all of the day, these are few years when ments. And women who have come up through the usual compared to a lifetime. Without what I call a channels of individual competition with men may not ''work-identity,'' moreover, women, their families, and readily understand the need to reexamine their perceptions society generally lose a great deal. about sexual differentiation. Needless to say, instituting a series of programs at one now I want to turn to the means: what co?eges But c~ or even several colleges can · hardly correct a condition that do for the education of women? I am not speaking sunply is fundamental to our society. But colleges can raise of women's colleges, for even if we were to inaugurate consciousness and offer students some tools with which instant coeducation, the problems would remain the same. to solve problems as well as the optimism necessary for any If we consider the candor with which some administrators of hitherto male colleges have discussed the function of political solution. incoming female students, in fact, the problems may mul­ Florence Howe attended an all·girls highschool in N. Y.C. tiply. As one dean put it to me, "The girls will keep our a~d Smith College. She has taught at Goucher College men on campus weekends." The three programmatic sug­ for nine years and is active in RESIST and the New gestions that follow are aimed at coeducational institutions University Conference. as well as women's colleges. The first two are curricular in nature. 1. The most traditional approach is to recruit women to at programs hitherto open chiefly to men (e.g., architec~ur~, Coming )1, engineering, international relations) or to create new mstl­ ea tutions to train women professionally in those careers. For er example, a woman's college might add to its campus a letter from new orleans is, school of architecture that gives graduate degrees. By and at large, this is the way that the education of women has bob zellner to proceeded in the past, though women have been channeled ill into nursing, teaching, social work, rather than allegedly

.9 Liberation 55 };;.e Grand Jury originated in the nine-tentl 13th century in England as a corps of New Yor Guide to the Grand Jury knights assigned to help the Crown fied at a identify and prosecute criminals. In the required Brian Glick and Kathy Boudin United States today many Grand Juries worth of still consist mainly of " blue ribbon" admits tl aristocrats. applicant From 1938-43 the federal court for mended T the southern district of New York exclude who wa ~ Ihe Grand Jury. Part of the Bill of I (Manhattan, Bronx, and Westchester) Rights. A bulwark of American justice, drew jurors primarily from Who's Who anyone ' supposedly serving three vital func- in New York, Who's Who in Engineer­ outstandi tions. ing, the Social Register, the alumni York Ti As the "conscience of the com- directories of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, checks S( munity," the Grand Jury is supposed and Dartmouth, and Poor's Register of relia bles.' to protect people against unfair prose- Executives and Directory of Directors. Recen cution. Until it finds that the govern- Many of these people stayed on the federal d ment ha~ substantial evidence, no per- jury panel for years and helped indict " selected son can be tried for a serious crime in the Rosenbergs and many Smith Act section ( federal court or in the courts of nearly defendants. The federal court agreed law also half the states. (In the other states and that this procedure systematically ex­ era 1 gran for non-serious crimes, a judge makes cluded black people and workers. But color, re this decision in a preliminary hearing.) it still upheld the procedure as an economic As "the people's big stick," the efficient way to find jurors who were The I Grand Jury is supposed to investigate properly "qualified." only to ( official misconduct. In many states it the sal a can issue a muckraking report even Today many states use only slightly names a when it decides no crime has been more subtle methods to select similarly voters 0 committed. elite juries. The grand juries which despite 1 Finally, the Grand Jury supposedly indicted Huey Newton and the Oak­ proporti provides opportunities for citizen parti­ land Seven, for instance, were picked blacks, F cipation in government. To the presi­ only from names provided by the Ala­ take no dent of New York's Grand Jury As­ meda County Superior Court judges. Jury de sociation it represents democracy in Twenty-six company presidents, 31 discretio: action: bankers, 5 utility executives, and a to treat Effective government can func­ number of realtors and other business written; it wasn't the Justice Department or tion-and our communities can officials were among the 261 jurors ifying ill the FBI or Daley, Johnson or Nixon maintain their vitality~only so long selected by the same method in San cuse fro. who decided that leaders of last sum­ as the ordinary citizen can and will Francisco from 1950 to 1968. Non- who dai mer's Chicago actions should be tried participate in determining the cir­ whites, over one-third the San Fran­ he rnigh for a federal crime. Not technically, cumstances under which he lives his cisco population, provided only five month's that is. life. Even before our country percent of the jurors. support Officially a grand jury did it. Other achieved its independence, grand The New York County grand juries (Most st grand juries have indicted black mili- . juries were a means by which which have indicted Columbia strike day. The tants and student activists. Many of us ordinary citizens have had a direct leaders and Black Panthers are not from $1 who do not face criminal charges have and powerful voice in the conduct much different. According to an ana­ half wh ~ already been called as grand jury wit­ of community affairs. lysis prepared for a court challenge, estimate: nesses or will be soon. We're learning A close look at what the grand jury the New York grand jurors who sat in needs to first hand how, in a society divided really is and does illustrates this 1964 were 1.65 percent black, .003 along lines of race and class, legal general prinCiple. Those who now ac­ percent Puerto Rican, and slightly over institutions are used by the powerful tively oppose the status quo-youth, 1 percent blue collar. N one were under Ganl to perpetuate the status quo. blacks, poor people-are excluded from 35. Most lived in census districts with white, I The purpose of legal repression is to jury duty. Moreover, the Grand Jury a median income of over $10,000 per sentativt intimidate and isolate us from our does not itself exercise significant year. gerial ci; base. Unless we are careful, repression power; it is controlled by the prose­ These jurors were chosen from in their can divert needed energy into defense cutor (D.A:, U.S. Attorney), who uses names supplied by judges and other juries pI groups for raising money and publi­ it as a weapon against movements for grand jurors, plus anyone who applied political cizing repression. change. in person at the jury clerk office. Over lege. n

56 August-September, 1969 Liberati

------the nine-tenths of the panel from which ciso grand juries during 1968 con­ ed to bring to trial someone he wants 's of New York juries are now picked quali­ demned "welfare chiselers" and drug to protect, the prosecutor can have the own · fied at a time when a grand juror was use, while supporting freeways and case killed by a grand jury of "or7 the required by law to own at least $250 downtown redevelopment and giving dinary citizens:" The Brooklyn D.A. Hies worth of property. The chief jury clerk "special recognition" to the police de­ used this tactic with great success Ion" admits that his office still rejects any part~nt's tactical squad. when a police officer shot a black applicant under 35 unless he is recom­ The unrepresentative make-up of youth in 1965. The grand jury issued a for mended by a judge. The clerks also the Grand Jury combines with the report exonerating the cop. D.A. 'ork exclude anyone on welfare, anyone tructure of the legal process to ensure Koota said there was nothing more he :ter) who was ever declared bankrupt, and that the Grand Jury will rubber stamp could do, and the courts rejected \Tho anyone who has a lien or judgement the prosecutor, not protect the people CORE's petition demanding further in­ eer­ outstanding against him. As the New against unjust prosecution. Most grand quiry. PreCisely the same technique is mni York Times recently put it , "credit juries are mystified by the techni­ now being used to protect the off-duty :on, checks screen out tly-by-nights and un­ calities of the law. They serve only one cops who attacked Black Panthers near r of reliables. " month every two or three years. They a Brooklyn courtroom. ors. Recent civil rights legislation gives have no staff except for the prose­ Through a grand jury report-one the federal defendants the right to a jury cutor's office, and they are not al­ which names names-a D.A. may be :lict "selected at random from a fair cross­ lowed to hire outside experts. The able to prosecute in the mass media Act section of the community." The new prosecutor manages the proceedings, opponents against whom he could eed law also prohibits exclusion from fed­ bringing documents and witnesses, prove no case in court. Black militants ex­ eral grand juries "on account of race, leading the question and drafting the in Cleveland were harassed in just this But color, religion, sex, national origin or indictment which the jury approves. way after that city's most recent an economic status." If one grand jury refuses to issue an "riots." In the early Fifties a New 'ere The real effect of this reform is indictment the prosecutor is free to York grand jury report accused offt­ only to open the federal Grand Jury to call another jury and yet another until cials of the United Electrical Workers the salaried middle classes. Jurors' he persuades one to go along. If a union of membership in the Corn­ ttly names are drawn only from lists of grand jury decides to indict someone munist Party, which was not a crime trly voters or persons registered to vote, he doesn't want convicted, the prose­ even then, and recommended that the ich despite the well-known fact that dis­ cutor can always find a way to let the National Labor Relations Board decer­ ak­ proportionately large numbers of case die. In some states he has the tify the union. ~ed blacks, Puerto Ricans and poor people legal right to dismiss any indictment. The prosecutor's third possible use .Ia­ take no part in the electoral process . In the others he can neglect to proceed of the grand jury is to deprive a defen­ :es. Jury clerks continue to exercise vase on the case, accept a guilty plea to a dant of the tactical advantages of a 31 discretion- remaining free, for example, trivial charge, or try the case in a way judicial preliminary hearing. At a pre­ I a to treat misspelling on the required which allows the defendant to win liminary hearing a defendant need not less written application as proof of disqual­ easily. take the stand or present any part of 'ors ifying illiteracy. Finally, the clerks ex­ his case. The defendant's attorney can ~an cuse from jury duty any wage earner A defendant can gain nothing from discover the state's case and cross­ on­ who claims financial hardship because grand jury proceedings. He and his examine its witnesses; if the witnesses an­ he might lose his job as a result of a attorney are excluded from the jury change their testimony at trial, he can Ive month 's absence or because he can't room. They cannot cross-examine the quote from the transcript of the hear­ support his family on the juror's fee . states' witnesses or object to questions ing to cast doubt on their honesty. ies (Most states pay only a few dollars a put to friendly witnesses. In federal Since court dockets are almost al ways ike day . The new law raised the federal fee courts and in many states the de­ crowded, defendants can use pre- lot from $10 to $20 per day, still only fendant cannot appear before the liminary hearings to gain time before na­ half what the U.S . Labor Department grand jury even if he does discover they have to stand trial. Attorneys for ge, estimates that a city family of four that it is discussing him, and in other the Columbia strikers used preliminary in needs to live decently.) states he can testify (and then leave) hearings to delay almost all trials until 03 only if he agrees to allow the prosecu- the fall , when a new University admin­ ler tor to use anything he says against him istration withdrew most of the charges ler Gand juries are made up mainly of .at trial. Although the prosecutor auto­ against the students. ith white, middle-aged and elderly repre- matically receiVes the transcript of the Since the grand jury serves the same ler ~ sentatives of the propertied and mana- jury proceedings, the defendant can see procedural functions as the preliminary gerial classes. It's hardly surprising that a copy only under special circum­ hearing-both are supposed to protect 1m in their watchdog function such grand stances and with a court order. against unjust prosecution and both in ler juries protect their own economic and Though the grand jury is useless to fact rubber stamp the D.A.-the defen­ ed political power and their social privi- defendants, it can help the prosecutor dant is not entitled to both a prelimin­ 'er lege. The reports issued by San Fran- in several important ways. When press- ary hearing and a grand jury. In federal

9 Liberation 57 court and in states which use grand inform or spend several years in jail.) seemingly harmless information will juries, a person cannot be required to help him. Since the grand jury meets stand trial for a serious crime (felony) be power to compel testimony in secret and no one can be certain until he is indicted by a grand jury. through the grand jury gives the D.A. precisely what any witness said, testi­ PJl But in trials for the minor crimes even more than Significant technical fying cannot help but spread suspicion (misdemeanors) that most people are advantages. It provides him, and the and distrust within the movement. Co­ 01 charged with, the prosecutor can government generally, with a powerful operation with the grand jury also rein­ B" choose between preliminary hearing forces its legitimacy and leads even In' and grand jury. If the defendant re- weapon for terrorizing people active in movements for social change. more people to believe it is in fact the 0, quests a preliminary hearing, the prose- protector of justice that it pretends to cutor can simply stall the case until he The grand jury meets in secret and I I is surrounded by an aura of mystery. be. MI obtains a grand jury indictment. Activist recent success in talking be­ The New York D.A. used this tactic Not only are the prospective defen­ AI dants, the media and the public ex­ fore HUAC in no way indicates that n to avoid repeating his Columbia fiasco cluded, but a witness cannot even the same approach would be appro­ In when CCNY students were arrested priate in responding to the grand jury. bring his own lawyer into the grand V, this fall for giving sanctuary to an jury room. His attorney can be in the HUAC could be made to look ridicu­ AWOL soldier. . The students were hall, and the witness can be excused to lous and its hearings could be used as a M( booked, charged and bailed out in the consult him, but this is a far cry from political platform because, unlike the ordinary manner. They then planned having counsel at his side throughout grand jury, HUAC meets in public, A collectively for the expected next . the proceeding. The D.A. may well be with the media present. Moreover, H, stage, the preliminary hearing, at which able to pressure him into answering HUAC can use the information it Pa many of them were going to represent questions he shouldn't answer and to gathers only to recommend legislation n themselves so they could more effec- embarrass him so he will leave to talk and publish propoganda; it has no Cr tively present their political views. To with his lawyer only rarely. power to issue indictments and use Pr the students' surprise, and the surprise The grand jury proceeding is the testimony before it as the basis ot AI of thel·r lawyers, the D.A. presented only situation in which a person can criminal prosecution (except for per­ Hi grand jury findings on the basis of legally be forced to talk to the author­ jury or contempt). which the judges denied requests for W · · h ' d' di t I ities entirely alone, with no lawyer or Strategy before a grand jury must pre IImlflary eanng an Imme a e y also be distinguished from strategy be­ set dates for trial. friends to advise and support him. The In prospect of such an experience can fore a trial jury. Trial juries are rela­ inally, the prosecutor can USe the terrify even the strongest and most tively more representative than grand F Tt grand jury to force potential defen- experi~nced of activists. The govern­ juries (though not made up of the dants' friends and comrades to talk ment tries to intensify these fears by "peers" of most defendants) ; the de­ with him and turn books and papers calling witnesses separately, or only a fendant generally has power to exclude over to him before trial, unless they couple at a time, and encouraging obviously biased jurors, plus some assert their Fifth Amendment privilege them to respond as isolated individuals. others. While the grand jury hears only against self-incrimination. He can use Most of the people called before the witnesses' answers to the prosecutor's the transcript of the grand jury pro- Chicago federal grand jury quietly ap­ questions and then confers privately ceedings at trial to contradict a defense peared and talked. By acting indivi­ with the prosecutor, the trial jury witness who changes his story. He may dualistically they reinforced the sense hears the defendant's full case-as he be able to trap a witness into lying to of loneliness and terror which the wants it presented-and hears the pros­ the grand jury and then convict the grand jury evokes. They failed to draw ecutor only in open court. witness of perjury, even if he doesn't on our one source of psychic and have enough evidence to try the wit- political strength in confronting the be people who testified in Chicago ness or anyone else for a substantial enemy on his turf, the power of collec- (continued on page 67) crime. tive action. The prosecutor has these powers Some of those who talked in Chi- only through the grand jury. Ordinarily cago thought they could persuade the we are no more required to talk with a jurors to refuse to issue indictments, A mangled version of this article ap­ D.A. or U.S. Attorney than with the an unlikely prospect given who sits on peared in the June, 1969 Liberation. FBI or the police. We can refuse to grand juries and the fact that the deci­ Because of the article's importance, talk with any of them without fear of sion to indict had already been made Liberation is presenting it here in its being jailed for contempt of court. (A politically and was only being imple­ proper form. person who lies to such officials can, mented through the grand jury. Others however, be prosecuted for willful mis- believed they could outsmart the U.S. representation. In the Fifties political Attorney, which seems equally unlikely activists frequently were trapped into since we never know just what the petty lies and then were forced to prosecutor's looking for and when

58 August-September, 1969 Libera rill ~ ts in ti- PAX AMERICANA poetry Chris Pollock )n 0- Dragged backward from sleep n- By an embryonic fear :n Into the smothered Ie Darkness of the room SUNSET to I hear the chronic Muttering of drains e- And dimly hear East Side drippy flats at The tolling bells Iron wounded in their sides, :l- In all the scattered From mossy complicated taps f· Women lather beneath open skies. J- Valleys of the world The lank wind mutters a Mourning the young war dead. le Among pot-bellied laundry lines, -, A volume of Tacitus Carries in its evening coils r, Haunts my mind, The smell of suppers on the boil. it Parched blood on the earth n The stones with sticky lips 0 Crying out, e Prodigies creeping from wombs ,t And the Roman People OBITUARY '- Hiding their eyes With thei r hands. His death to be announced:

In all the scattered He was lowered to the grave i One dun Sunday in November, The stones with sticky lips The earth drummed its fingers Softly on his coffin Filling up his memories with earth, And then the hush of ground and stars.

Liberation 59 s

with it Reflections on the Moon Paul Goodman planets on all] gotten Moon landing was mankind being great at several of curiosity, a better level of chatter. Why do some radicals lose J;e race h, our best things, exploring, making ingenious contraptions, their common sense when they talk politics? To tell a child tion h, cooperating with a will to do it, drawing on the accumulation or a man that he mustn't have ice cream or liquor because have ac of history whether we think of the equations of Galileo, there are starving Armenians is to be so "serious" as to surpris' Kepler, and Newton or the roving Polynesians, Vikings, deserve to be taken seriously. And when it is a matter like edly; b Columbus, and Magellan. And not least, lusting to see at a space-exploration that embodies so many ideals and even stupidi distance-the pictures a second later were as sensational as human imperatives, to be cold to it is to be taken as not for Congre the trip. People do beat all! When the first Sputnik flew on real or even immoral. a Harri October 4, 1957, I wrote a sonnet that was published in There is nothing ironical in the fact that we can land on it wou Liberation, and it is still so : the moon but can't make traffic move or feed the hungry. image, much A new thing with heavenly motion made by us/ presen1 flies in the sky, it is passing every hour / Colum signalling in our language. What a power/ Portug; of thought and skill has launched this marvelous/ the ear man-made moon. and suddenly the gorgeous/ The abyss lies open, as you spring a door/ explcir to enter and visit where no man before/ the Gc ever came. UNICI It is a mysterious/ alism moment when one crosses a threshold/ have t, and "Have I been invited?" is my doubt./ cation Yes, for our wish and wonder from of old/ from and how we patiently have puzzled out/ Power the laws of entry, warrant we have come/ over, . into the great hall as a man comes home. before all nat This combination of itching exploration and complicated NASA can't make an epigram or a metaphor either. All the makes machinery is, of course, a peculiarly Western mask of man, resources of society can't educate a child or give a poor man Thl Faustian man-the Boodhisatvas tended to embark on inner freedom or me happiness. All these take different kinds of itself. space-voyages, with psychological technology. But ours It is soul, all good. is politically a disaster to try to play one and tl one of the ways of being that mankind has invented/ good against another, for people stick to what they do value. the Sf discovered; and in our times it is a worldwide way, including Consider the exquisite care for safety in our space program­ technc the Orient and Africa, that we are going to continue, it is astounding that there was only one accident that cost spyin! however arduous, or we revert to barbarism or annihilation. lives; if there had been the slightest hint of sacrificing a life, violat] To belittle these things is to miss the worldwide public there would have been universal outrage, as there was an Russi, feeling. Eldridge Cleaver and Noam Chomsky have called the outcry about the little monkey; yet we ruthlessly destroy photo event a circus, but this is polemic spite and snobbery. people on battlefields, in jails, and in slums. But it is on dis (Apparently, only MIT professors have a right to noble and pointless to say that this is hypocrisy, for it is not hypocrisy; We exciting games.) For a hundred fifty years the Americans it is that people have not been made to think through and about have had a propensity to do everything, good, bad, or feel their ruthless acts. Discuss those in their own terms. think indifferent, in a glare of publicity and coverage; and indeed It is claimed that we have to judge the Moon adventure as fine b the Moon stories were rather sweet. Some scientists have said part of a whole social picture, in terms of comparative much that to send up a package of instruments was all that was importance and a rational b~ance of costs. I don't think so, the f1 necessary; but they don't understand that we are excited by not in cases on the edge, like this. What good Samaritan, tangle a new horizon for ourselves, not a me of data; and I don't artist, amorous kid, or guerrilla ever judges with that kind of hypoe believe-or don't want to believe-that cold calculations are balance? Indeed, commanding the Moon landing was the . staten as good as our experience, however naive. Again, I don't only action of John Kennedy that rightly fitted his adoles­ And i think that the economic priority has been so bad as the cent mentality and therefore had grace-contrast, e.g., the purit} radicals say. The cost amounted to less than %% of the inappropriateness of such a personality during the Cuban almos G.N.P., and these are our cathedrals-in advanced countries, missile crisis. It's too bad he didn't live to bask in the glory. peopll science and scientific technology have been the dominant If we take the Moon enterprise in its own terms, however, Pal religion for a hundred years (sometimes diabolic). We ought as something unquestionably to be done and worth doing, is a d, to see to it that everybody lives well, but a part of living well there are' some sad and unpleasant things to be said about the of th is blowing money you can't "afford" on big excitement, context and style. From the beginning, the context of a race biogn

60 August-September, 1969 Liber,

------with the Russians has been bad. Going to the Moon and the combat records, from small towns, etc. One has to be planets is too big, too scientific, too historic, too dependent cautious when there is so much risk to persons and cap~tal, on all mankind and too future-laden for all mankind, to have but I guess that a draft resister, a Puerto Rican dropout, a gotten entangled in the Cold War and in propaganda. The farm mother of five, or even a queer might have been trained race has been shameful. The secrecy and national competi­ for the job equally well. The Russians seem to have collected tion have gone counter to the spirit of Western science and more various and colorful types. have added to the current degradation of science. I have been A·s I consider these events in terms of human history, surprised that the scientists did not protest it more concert­ ffo~ver, one aspect has been more disturbing than any of edly; but it seems appallingly obvious, for instance from the the above; it was so from the beginning a dozen years ago stupidity about the UN flag, that except for the Cold War, and it was salient in July 1969: the overwhelming collectivity Congress would never have voted the money. I did not notice of the enterprise-the thousands upon thousands of industrial a Harris poll about international cooperation; I wonder what workmen and clerical staff and grease-monkeys and profes­ it would have shown. At least in the government's official sors and technicians, busy as ants and accurately inter­ image, e.g. the statements of the astronauts, we have been locking, going through hundreds of simulations in order to much less chauvinistic than the Russians. And bad as the get everything by rote, and determined by the computer. present situation has been, we must remember that when And the other armies of TV teams and scientists with their Columbus put in at Lisbon after his first voyage, the King of lasers, seismographs, and chemical retorts, worked into the Portugal plotted to banish him and his ship from the face of scenario. It is possible to think away the militarism-one way the earth, before the news got abroad. or another we will have to get rid of it in this generation or The race has been especially unfortunate since space­ we are done for-but if mankind has a future, how to cope exploration is a natural for international cooperation, like with this inevitable collectivity? the Geophysical Year, the World Health Organization, and I do not mean that the people seem robotized. On the UNICEF. There has been enough sentiment for internation­ contrary, they look willing, earnest, attentive, I say "like alism to generate the UN treaty against annexation. I still ants" advisedly; and there is a beauty in this collective have tjle wan hope that putting effort, capital, and communi­ action. If they were robotized, there would have been cation systems into transnational activities can drain energy blunders and catastrophe, not achievement. Yet there is a from the insane aggrandizement of the sovereign Great terrible loss of flashing spirit and personality. For instance, I Powers. Perhaps now that the first ·hectic flush of the race is do not know the names of the architectonic scientists and over, we can go back to this idea. There is a good proposal inve·ntors, and in this set-up it would not be right for them to before the UN to launch an orbiting platform for the use of take a bow. Rejected Goddard can exist only as the name of all nations; and the Powers may take it up simply because it a space center. With the best will in the world (and oh, do makes economic sense, and they are broke. they have will!), the TV teams cannot make the astronauts The horror of the military auspices and aura speaks for look like anything but tame adolescents-though Neil itself. The Pentagon and our military-industrial corporations Armstrong roused my fellow-feeling by his decent uneasiness and the military powers in the Kremlin have been boosting at putting his foot down, in that airless world and blinding the space ventures every step of the way; every part of the sunlight, on the ground that might sink beneath him. In this technology is potentially a weapon; the satellites are used for enterprise, we certainly seem to see Teilhard de Chardin's spying; and we even toyed with an armed platform, in transcendent Noosphere, the super-mind, in operation. violation of the UN treaty. The brute fact is this: if the Nevertheless, as an anarchist and a psychologist I am quite Russians can hit Venus at 30,000,000 miles and we can convinced that this kind of environment is not viable; if it photograph Mars at a similar distance, we had all better rely becomes universal, no child will learn anything, the culture on disarmament rather than "defense." will become Byzantine, and civilization itself become brittle We thus have the ambiguity that many people are excited and break. about exploring space, and the mass of mankind kind of think it's right; and I have no doubt that there are very many Think of it in the future and in the present. We will fine but craft-idiot scientists who want to do the work so pursue these explorations and hopefully colonize- so much that they blink at the auspices; but on the other hand, B)Jckminster Fuller thinks and urges, and he is a wise the funding, organization, and technology are ~extricably predicter. As always in the past, the culture and style of the tangled with the war machine. Inevitably, with the colossal colonies must depend on the character of the colonizers and hypocrisy for which we are famous, the official space the organization of the colonization. To give an example, the statements of the President all have had to do with peace. Polynesian sailors who crossed two and three thousand miles And indeed, the public coverage has stuck with remarkable of open sea to settle Hawaii brought a brutal theology, a ~ purity to the adventure, the wonder, and the ingenuity, with savage feudalism, and a most rudimentary culture compared almost no martial or imperialist overtones. This is how with the grace they left behind-but what would you expect people want it. from bully rovers with ants in their pants? And inevitably, all Partly because of the military auspices- but, of course, it present talk about space colonies consists of mining and is a deeper disease in our country- our astronauts, the images cryogenic operations carried on by computerized personnel. of the enterprise, have been strangely homogeneous in Bear in mind that in history the colonies have sometimes biography, men in their late thirties with 2.2 children and become far more important than the mother countries.

Liberation 61 II) t; ~ '~... <{ ~, c: u ' ~'" CD E <{ '0 ...CD ., ''"u til ~ 'f <{ <{ 0 c - B I:; '': ~ ::> ~ 0 <{ u ~ 1 <{ ...0

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Brot Ir And at present, what must be the effect on the man in the and if it is necessary for the on-going human adventure, we ning' street? These great achievements not only, justifiably, deter­ must go with it or commit historical suicide, At the same exan mined fashion in behavior and language-ow! "Roger" time, in order to have live people at all, we must multiply all Woh "Over" "All systems go" "Houston , I'm on the porch"- but the anarchist things, education that delays socialization, peop they must also, not quite so justifi ably, make people believe decentralization wherever 'it is possible, do it yourself, poin that there can be no great achievement except in this weakening the State. It will not be easy to show the ordinary prod collective style, no science but Big Science, no growing up man that these directions are compatible. Maybe they are their and culture except plugged into the Noosphere , As the institutionally not compatible. If so, we are at a dead end. riam editorial in the Boston Globe put it, much as they sympa­ For, in candor, I must add one other, very gloomy his I thize with the hippies, to go to the Moon you've got to be thought. I have had it from time to time, but it struck me relat pretty square. I don't think there is any simple solution to most forcibly during the Christmas voyage when they looked Ever this problem. As Coleridge said in a similar context, referring back at the Earth spinning below. Given how people have thou to the Industrial Revolution and the Manchester economists, been polluting and destroying that earth, the astronauts base: "In order to have citizens, you must first be sure that you sometimes seem to be like callow adolescents, abandoning nece have men." We must willingly affirm this grand collectivity; the place where they have tossed their beer cans.' But it's my this Iit is not evil if people do identify with it and are not coerced; yard. dete]

62 August-September, 1969 L ibe

-~~~~------deteriorated if one looks only at lead­ note how Lynd ignores substance and ers' pronouncements. analysis ("genuine scientific research"), Again, Lynd's second "history" of The key difference between Lynd's the Resistance since April 1968 shows two "histories" since 1968 is precisely how he sees SDS and the Resistance as the fulfillment of the criteria-"a com­ separate organizations vying for the prehensive political program" -which leadership role ("a position to play a SDS folk like Steve Weissman, Mike key role in building the broad libera­ Goldfield, others used to criticize the tion movement") in "revolutionary origirlal Resistance strategy. general strikes." To say this, one must Moreover, among the criticisms of ignore or discount people's self­ the Resistance was the same conclusion activity. that Lynd comes to: The forms of But Lynd's history of the Resist­ protest of the Resistance were/are ance before April 1967 shows, to my forms for elite college students, con­ mind, something closer to his notions sequences of the class character of the of good history-if only because the channeling system. It is irl this context organization didn't really exist. I think (not as "a further argument" separate something else is working when he from it) that Carl Davidson and Hamil­ deals with the Resistance and SDS as ton's criticism, as I remember it, was organizations. His view of their vying conducted: The forms of protest of for leadership of late helps explain the Resistance were/are "charac­ why, besides talking history, so much teristically middle class" -whatever the of Lynd's-and Calvert's "A Left Wing sentiment they express. Alternative" -talk sounds like apolo­ irl Lynd and Calvert we see a getics for the Resistance and subtle But specific objection taken to being condemnation of SDS, to the point of accused of "the politics of guilt." What not paying any attention to analysis, has been at issue has not primarily only to leaders' (other leaders') talk. been such identification of motivation And implicit in the apologetics is a and sentiments, but irlstead the ques­ criteria for leadership: it shall accrue tion of adequate analysis and program: to .the most humanist. So the apolo­ the class nature of the oppression AND getics continually violate another prin­ OF THE MOVEMENT AGAINST IT' ciple of Lynd's. He warns us against This is the issue when we try to fight dealing in stereotypes-a sure irldica­ the recapitulation of capitalist styles tion (when used to achieve leadership within the movement (e.g., male chau­ roles) of opportunism. But he and Cal­ An Exchange virlism and class supremacy). The issue vert both move in the world of which­ is not whether guilt over such style is group-to-pirl-which-stereotype-on. motivating shoddy orgaruzmg, but The stereotypes are all too easy. On whether the style itself is to be an the one hand: Lenirlist-Stalinist middle object of our analysis. class guilt masochist martyrdom (bad). Brothers &Sisters, I for one never thought the critic­ On the other: Humanist-combinirlg­ In "The Movement: a New Begin­ ism of the Resistance rested on the sop hi st i c ated-analysis wi th-a-humane­ lYe ning" Staughton Lynd cites three notion of a politics of guilt. But Lynd s p i ri t -r e mirliscent-of-the-movement -in­ ne examples (Chomsky, Cohn-Bendit, the and Calvert may think it did and thus the-ear ly-I960s-with-consensus- deci­ all Wobblies) of anti..elitist thinking about countenittack. But to redo the argu­ sion-making-emotional-openness-and­ on, people's socialist self-activity "at the ment now and to ignore its questions decentralizated-structure. ''the charac­ If, point of production" -at the points of of political analysis strikes me as part teristic Resistance manner" is "seeking ry productive contradiction throughout of an opportunistic attack on SDS. .re their daily lives. He's critical of histo­ out an irldividual at a time" and "a per­ Especially when the counterargument rians who neglect evidence of this. But sonal, deep communication type of poli­ says that "affirmation rather than self­ ly his own treatment of SDS-Resistance tics" (so good). denial was the emotional kernel" of ne relations deserves just this criticism. SUCh egotripping. In his preface to the Resistance. Affirmation, strength, ~ d Even when showing a compatibility of the second edition of Capital, self-reliance- aspects of a fightirlg ve thought between the two groups, he Marx notes that once the bourgeoisie humanism-parts of an argument to Its bases it on leaders' relations and is established itself in the early 1800s, in make the Resistance the most human­ ag necessarily led to discuss "what caused place of genuine scientific research ist. ly this happy state of things to there came "the bad conscience and Somehow, says Lynd, the personal, deteriorate" -since it certainly has the evil intent of apologetic." Please open humanist affirmation has been

59 Liberation 63 wiped out of SDS (Calvert is no longer work, which has been vital to the and humanism. Working with the attending meetings) while continually analysis being developed, it doesn't Movement for a Democratic Society in LE confirmed in the Resistance. This leads characterize the Southern Conference Springfield, Mass., I know we cannot to a characterization of SDS as dog­ Education Fund, and it does not make a morality out of talking to each matic and manipulative, which actually characterize the debate ,at the Ann person one by one. characterizes male leadership forms Arbor (winter 68-69) NC. The other side of this Humanis­ T~ throughout the movement. It is yet to Lynd and Calvert exaggerate or per­ testism is that SDS has deteriorated be shown that this characterizes the haps -re'ally ignore the politics of the into a dogmatic centralist white-guilt bulk of SDS members' movements~ position on racism. Lynd makes anti­ machine. A view fostered by looking " What it does do, of course, is build the racist work SDS's "primary political only at the factionalism when (as Lynd fa Resistance imagemaking. activity" (I have shifted the emphasis has seen) two (actually at least three) re Lynd says "perhaps one should turn in the phrase; Lynd italicized "pri­ elitist groups see SDS as a group to wi the SDS critique of the Resistance mary"). Carl Davidson did a good cri­ recruit from. frl inside out, and argue that during the tique of Calvert (June Liberation) The begged question is the real one: ell past year SDS has been reverting to doing the same thing, so I won't dwell What are the people doing? In their wl the very politics of middle-class self­ on it. But just note how the terms development as a movement it's not an de flagellation which it charges to the neatly separate the humanists from the easy answer of pat stages and deteri­ fo Resistance; that is, that since the dogmatists (Totalitarians). oration at the hands of Leninists and th spring 1968 National Council meeting Note also: Liberation reprints Lynd Stalinists. I sense, because the Resis­ ell SDS has asked white people again to and Calvert together, instead of Calvert tance sees its style as more humanist so play the role of auxiliaries to other and Davidson (and not Calvert­ than the SDS NO collective, a willing­ peoples' radicalism. " While this may Davidson-Calvert!). Imagemaking. ness to acquiesce in the destruction of characterize the Rudd-Klonsky postur­ What seems to be working in all this SDS as a movement group and in the S articJ ing, it does not characterize the debate is an attempt by humanists to be the elitist notion that there is one move­ LayiJ and analysis that has dealt with the most humanist. Somehow, the image ment style. caUSE question of racism (and explicitly the With a good deal of concern, is, Resistance practice has simply ful­ learn Jon Weissman question of "white demands"). It filled its original notions, rather than stud doesn't characterize Noel Ignatin's shaped and been shaped by struggle scho, Iowa the Southern Conference Educational welf: Iynd replies: Fund in an essay in the July Libera­ "Mal tion. There I suggested, consistent with Blacl the analysis of the Bloomington talk, Com We have all been through six reread it. Surely its thrust was to criti­ that the approach to racism which em­ learr months of factional activity more in­ cize the Resistance for permitting itself phasizes surrender of "white skin privi­ that tense than we ever expected to en­ to defme Resistance work by the act leges" -does indeed encourage the emo­ that counter in the New Left. I am sure of draft card return. In so doing the tion of guilt and does not necessarily insti! this has left scars on all participants, Resistance has become not only single­ produce - substantive assistance to the T myself included. An aspect of factional issue and single-constituency, but black liberation struggle. I hope Jon whie activity is that people simply encoun­ single-tactic. I believe I share with Jon Weissman will join in discussion of !ish ter each other less (closed caucusing Weissman the concern that the move­ these problems in future issues. sitie: reinforces thiS), and in an atmosphere of ment reach beyond a middle-class and Thus I find most of Weissman's had isolation stereotypes flourish and lead ' on-campus constituency, and moreover specific points unconvincing. Yet I be­ how to further isolation. that I made this plain in the Blooming­ lieve he puts his finger on an element Dry. Before responding to any of Jon ton talk which Liberation printed. of organizational chauvinism which was wuU Weissman's particular points, I want to Aside from the extended quotation present in that Bloomington talk. He is then make it clear that I share what I be­ of Greg Calvert's speech at Princeton probably right, too, in suggesting that year lieve to be his central concern, namely, in spring 1967, I don't believe my talk a certain glorification of humanism­ cOuJ tha t all involved rapidly extricate dwelt on or even identified leaders. abstracted-from-political-work went liter themselves from habits of name-calling Even in referring to the Princeton along with this. I am grateful to have appl and get on with work. Work, apart speech I thought I made it clear that it the opportunity to reemphasize that tool from its other virtues, is also the best illustrated a rank-and-flle mood expres­ what I hope for is the building of mass tech approach to breaking down the fac­ sed in the button, "Not With My Life organizations, controlled from below, fron tionalism which has prevented work. You Don't." which practice militant direct action tota If Jon Weissman believes my talk at' without becoming inhumane. Whatever ("Ti the Resistance conference praised the As Jon Weissman may have noticed leadership the Left requires belongs to "Ye Resistance because it "simply fulfilled after writing his letter, I tried to deal whichever groups or individuals prove com its original notions," I think he should with the work of Noel Ignatin and of most creative in that work. You

64 August-September, 1969 Lib trations usually convey an implied Letter to the Movement: grade ratio to the teachers; too many F's mean a bad teacher.) "A" grades would not help them get a job or hold one, and they knew this full well. lit The EnglishTeacher as Civilizer fact, good grades were openly devalued Barbara Kessel by the students as a sign of excessive conformity. One fellow who got an " . . . at Dexter and elsewhere the College" (a fantasy of a prestigious "A" for the term quite Unintentionally faculty assume that it is their duty to professor saying, "The Red Badge oj had to put up with teasing from his replace the students' actual culture Courage, that masterpiece of friends, who made up a game called with an alien culture. · Missionaries irony ..." and the student, properly "Herbie's Road to Success," which was from these graduate schools, like shamed, remembers his Philistine rant­ a maze full of dead-endsand only one clergy from colonial empires every­ ings of olden times.) right way to get out. Although "one of where and in every time, feel confi­ What many teachers never suspect is the boys," Herbie was not one of the dent that what they bring is good that most of the students have their cultural warriors. for the natives and will improve own critical principles. (I can hear the But if they were unimpressed with them in the long run. In culture, as snorts and harumphs at the very idea.) the power of a course grade, there was elsewhere, this is manifestly not The most important principle held very still something which they held in-awe. so." dear and in common is the non­ That something is the ultimate weapon objectivity of any critical statement in the colonial kit of the English So wrote John McDermott in an about art. Two-thirds of a "college teacher: the language-his sacred trust, article quite famous on the Left, "The prep" high school class fought me and the substance of his sacerdotal func­ Laying on of Culture." This article the remaining compliant third of the tions. Practically everyone who does caused me to realize what I have class to a bloody standstill over their not speak or write in the dialect of the learned in six years' teaching from my right to "a poem means whatever any­ socially powerful ("he do, don't he?") students-white working-class high­ one sees in it." One guy even went feels that his language is bad. Just like ~hool students, professors' kids at into the community taking j sample "bad hair" and a whole lot of other Iowa, both urban and rural, women on reactions to some poems, to prove his oppressive values, the language is now welfare who were paid to go tluough point. Why did a group of 16-year-olds beginning to undergo transvaluation "Manpower Training," and the militant get so excited over an abstraction among Black people, but not among Black students at Malcolm El Shabazz seemingly far removed from their lives? poor and working-class whites. . The Community College. What I have So that they can protect their "NO" only defense they have is to keep their learned, gradually and painfully, was when some teacher says "Buttons" by mouths shut and write as infrequently that every last assumption and attitude Carl Sandburg is a good poem, but as possible and very carelessly. The that my graduate school training had Phillip Freneau's "To the Memory of students pretend they wrote their instilled was destructive. Brave Americans" is sentimental. themes on the bus, even when they The first and most common insight Another class got very insulted over didn't, the implication being that one which occurs to people teaching Eng­ that "sentimental," and the class could do better if he had taken some lish on a lower level than the univer­ apologists argued that the word "senti­ time with it. sities is that most of the courses we mental" was merely a put-down word There are three types of English had are irrelevant to the task, seeing as that some people used to describe teachers wIth respect to the use of how the "non-elite" will not relate to other people's emotions, which they language by students: 1) The high Dryden and Pope, Chaucer and Beo­ didn't happen to feel. priest who has the language on tablets wulf (the elite aren't exactly eager for It is very satisfying to recall the which were brought down from the them either), and it has been many a spirit with which those students con­ mountain long ago. He spends most of year since our freshman composition ducted their cultural resistance strug­ his time on graffimar and loves it for courses. Still there are text books of gles on the battleground of literature. I its own sake. He also knows what is literature and paperbacks which can be have since taught classes which were good for the students, while they do appropriately used and we do have our waiting for the Word on what was not know as yet. 2) The Protestant tool bags of critical principles and Good before anyone would venture an missionary who brings the language as I techniques. Most of us have managed opinion. However, the great advantage a means for the clever to become from there, and when we ran into the possessed by the future mechanics and socially mobile. He is for the students. total student rejection phenomenon me clerks who made up the bulk of His mission is to create Eliia Doolittle ("The Red Badge of Courage stinks!" that high school was that grades were successes; and he devotes much time to 'Yea, right."), we fell back on the of no concern to them. Passing was correcting papers. He doesn't claim to comforts of "I'm Only Trying To Help important, but that presents a prob­ know what is best for all his students, You" or "You'll See When You Go to lem to very few. (High school adminis- but he does have the secret for those

Liberation 65 s

chosen few who dream great dreams. ments. What if a class of students write and One modern, hip type spends some produce a great play, but it cannot be time on the study or discussion of I have a dream: All of types one put on in the school auditorium dialects, which concludes with some and two become transformed into type because it offends the powers that form of the dictum that "your lan­ three and cotpe forth tomorrow, burn be-as any great play should? What if guage is as good as anybody's, only their grammar books and their the students have had this great experi­ don't use it on paper or in school." red pens out of the window in full ence of individuality and community, This way the teacher can prove to view of the students and set about to yet go forth into a predatory or indif­ himself that he is not racist, national­ further convince the students that it is ferent community where there is no istic, Or snobbish, and yet fulfill his now safe to communicate. What would opportunity to experience themselves function as a colonialist. After all, the happen then? In my experience, the . this way again and to relate to others department insists, the school requires, students test the situation for a good in cCK>peration? Of what good is it? and the society demands. What else while, then plunge into something or a Politics without culture, on the can he do? 3) The marginal church variety of things with fury and passion, other hand, does not move the people. man whose ministry is in the streets, criticize each other, and demand reac­ People must experience their own indi­ bars, and community or campus meet· tions from everywhere. Herb Kohl and vidual worth, as well as theii national ings, whose main battle is with church James Herndon have chronicled this worth if it has been explicitly denied I establishments to force them into experience with Black children. I ' have them, in order to be able to feel they "relevance" and humane uses of their seen it happen, not only in a class of have a right to have rights. In the last power. (I called him marginal because Black college students, average age of two years at Malcolm X College I have AU his tenure is usually temporary.) This 24, but also · in a ninth grade of all­ seen dozens of students transformed BL kind of teacher, a John Holt or a white and culturally advantaged. In through their fIrst contact with their • James Herndon, wants the students to time, with this kind of energy released own culture in recognized forms and MC speak and write with freedom and at all grade levels around the country, structures. They are transformed from growing pride, out of their own dreams there would be an explosion of new quiet, apathetic, even anomic people • and sense of what is best for them. He cultures. People would be deeply invol­ with solerrm, heavy faces into people WF neither corrects papers nor dispenses ved in the creation and the criticism of with vitality, anger, humor, joy, des­ grammar, and his energies go into com­ culture that was integral to their own pair, and political consciousness. These batting "the way it spozed to be" in lives, rather than standing and watch­ are students who jump in buses to go (con the mind-sets of his students, his col­ ing that which is contradictory to their to the state capitol and torment legis­ alm( leagues, administrators, and recently lives. How alienating is it to 'see life lators who are threatening the city talk even in the Modern Language Associa· through the form and spirit of a musi­ college with a tuition increase that witn tion (Mother Language Association). cal comedy or a TV serial. would stop half the student body from with He also devotes himself to learning his However, all would not be well in further education, while the white stu­ yers students' language, so · he can appre­ this projected future, for culture does dents mutter hopelessly to each other ney ciate their culture, the Significant pat· not come to life and survive in a about the tuition. (The result was a Am terns in their lives as they perceive and vacuum. As Herb Kohl observed, his narrow, fished-out-of-the-fire victory incr express them. Only if he has this sixth graders had to re-learn "the way for the anti-tuition forces, until next 1 understanding can he aid in then it spozed to be" to survive in the rest year.) Thus I conclude that while the fede of the school system, as well as in defense of culture is political, the soul any, defense, their cultural resistance strug­ mig] gles. Some of this type still believe in their Harlem world. This explosion of of politics is cultural. It is thit pool of thm the Eliza Doolittle myth but have too creativity and participation would common meaning and beauty that attract the vultures of culture, who gives one courage and reason to strug­ tuti, much compassion and integrity to be tion irrelevant to all their "normal" stu­ would swarm to package and sell it for gle for one another and for one's self. profit to passive consumers, as we have In the meantime, every English one dents and end up being captivated by fore what they fmd. Others are radicals seen happen to rock-and-roll and folk teaclier who aids in the national effort pos~ who know that the social system does music, once-vital art that belonged to to "civilize" the non-elite manages sub­ the people, not Columbia Recor~s. tly to convey that the students' values one not have the capacity to absorb even incr This process both degrades the art and (literature) are lowdown and crude, significant numbers into higher levels the deprives the artist of his base to relate and that their language is ugly and in the hierarchy of jobs and status, and 1 to. Thus this creation of culture must unacceptable for important communi­ that for an individual to turn himself Fift inside out-trade in the dialect of his. be tied to a defense of culture, a cation. To the extent that they do political resistance, both in the school their job well, the English teacher, po~ family and neighborhood for a stutter kin< and a white collar is a very bad deal. and in the community. Culture with­ perhaps more than any other type of mUl He doesn't even make more money out politics is a hundred flowers blos­ teacher, has helped to keep the natives of I after all that. As for power, the kind soming and being plucked instantane­ in their place. that can be gotten by non-elites, it has ously by the same folk who deplete Barbara Kessel teaches at Malcolm L. hel' talk nothing to do with academic refIne- our physical environment continuously. Shabazz Junior College in Chicago

66 August-September, 1969 Lib l LIBERATION does not accept paid advertisements, but we do accept (and invite) exchange ads with other publications onthe Left ------and CONTRIBUTIONS ,too!

The response to the fund appeal has been very disappoint­ ing. If Liberation is to continue to be a forum for all as­ ~viathan pects of the movement we will need your financial support. JOURNAL Please fill out the coupon below with your check or mon­ OF THE ey order and mail to Liberation, 339 Lafayette St., New new '• NEW LEFT York, N.Y. 10012 AUGUST ISSUE: CORPORATE CAPITAL, BLACK CAPITALISM, AND THE GHETTO • 14 NOTES ON TELEVISION AND THE Name------MOVEMENT / TODD GITLIN. MORE!!!!! • 50 CENTS --ONE YEAR .12 ISSUES- $5 Address------. WRITE: 2700 BROADWAY, N.Y., N.Y. City------State------Zip------·

(continued from page 58) the Fifth were not offered irrununity, done something wrong? almost certainly could have refused to possibly because federal irrununity laws The decision almost certainly will talk without risking jail. The last three may not cover the supposed crimes vary with time, place and person. witnesses, who planned their responses which the grand jury was investigating. Whatever response is chosen, it is cri­ with other movement activists and law­ Taking the Fifth, like accepting a tically important that it be determined yers, were excused by the U.S. Attor­ deferment to the draft, still involves collectively, on political as well as per­ ney after they pleaded the Fifth some cooperation with the authorities sonal grounds, and that it be joined Amendment privilege against self­ and still appears to accept the legiti­ with a political offensive against the incrimination. macy ot their power. As with · the Grand Jury and the oppressive legal The U.S. Constitution prohibits draft, the alternative is total non­ system of which it is a part. federal or state officials from forcing cooperation leading to imprisonment. The witnesses who took the Fifth in anyone to give any information ..yhich (First Amendment free speech offers Chicago first moved in a highly publi­ might tend to incriminate him. Al­ no protection, as a number of people cized court session to have their sub­ though technically there is no consti­ on the left discovered when they were poenas dismissed. They used the court tutional right to refuse to give informa­ jailed for contempt in the Fifties.) hearing and press conferences to attack tion because it might incriminate some­ The criteria for choosing between the grand jury's composition and pro­ one else, in practice the courts are the two possible responses are essen­ cedures, as well as the prosecutor's forced to accept almost all claims of tially the same as those applicable to breach of secrecy and the bias of the possible self-incrimination, since no Selective Service. What would be the judge who convened the jury. Other one can prove his testimony might likely political impact of total refusal, methods of attack might range from incrimina te another person without in given the witness's status and consti­ leaflets and guerrilla theater to provid­ the process incriminating himself. tuency? To what extent does the ing sanctuary for a witness who re­ The only legal obstacle to using the movement seem ready and able to or­ fused to appear or physically invaded Fifth Amendment is the grand jury's ganize around a refusal? How would the grand jury room. power in some courts and in some the witness use his liberty if he We need to attack the legal system kinds of cases, to offer a witness im­ avoided jail? Can his use of the Fifth of the United States-courts, grand munity from prosecution on the basis Amendment be explained publicly in a juries, legislative committees, the ide­ of his testimony and then to have him way which avoids (as the left did not ology itself-just as we attacked its held in contempt if he still refuses to in the Fifties) the appearance of fraternal institutions, the university talk. The Chicago witnesses who took defensiveness and of admitting having and the Selective Service System.

Liberation 67 • righton! lIBERATION •

A few months ago, Susan Sontag called reprints available a "shrewd, urgent, brave and Liberation The Movement: A New Beginning humane voice of the movement." In the Staughton Lynd and Greg Calvert months ahead, Liberation will try to live up Two articles based on speeches delivered to the compliment by presenting major at the March, 1969, Resistance Conference. articles on white organizing, the Middle Reprinted from the May, 1969, issue 35 cents each; 12 copies $3.50; 100 for $17.50 East, Rosa Luxemburg, the Media, Fidel's Revolution: Violent and Non-Violent Cuba, the anti-war movement and other Regis Debray and Barbara Deming pressing subjects by writers like Noam Reprinted from the February, 1968, issue Chomsky, Todd Gitlin, John McDermott, 35 cents each; 12 copies $3.50; 100 for $17.50 Mike Locker, Paul Jacobs, Staughton Lynd, Waves of Resistance and Dave Dellinger. A monthly Liberation Carl Wittman feature is a letter to the movement which A discussion of how the movement can and ought to reach homosexuals, 'single informally describes the work of movement parents and others who have not yet activists around the country. Our next made a co nnection between the diffi­ issue, for instance, will include a letter to culties they face and the repressive the movement from Naomi Jaffe, who has society they li ve in. been assoc iated with Women's Liberation Reprinted from the November, 1968, issue 10 cents each; 12 copies $1.25; 50 for $2.50 in New York City. First Street School We hope you 'll take Susan Sontag's George Dennison advice and subscribe. A subscri ption costs A report on an important experiment $7 ($5 for students) for 11 issues. in elementary education. Reprinted from the July, 1966 issue 15 cents each; 12 copies $1.25; 50 for $3.50 Report From Revolutionary China Dave Dellinger Reprinted from the January, 1967, issue 10 cents each; 12 copies' $1 .00; 20 for $1.50

SEEDS OF LIBERATION ud itc,d by Paul Goodman. A 5 76-l-la[lu h"rucover se lection of th e best f rom LI BFRAT ION's first ten years. "This antho logy is quite ilslOrlishi",1 for i ts literar y brilliance and f or the excellence of its r eporti ng."- E:dmund W ilso n. Published by George B ra7 iller , I nc. at 57.50. Our price, $5.50 ------LIBERATION /339 Lafayette St. / New York 10012 I Please sen d me the items ma rked below. Enclosed is my check I f or $_ I I _SUBSCRIPTION ($7 or $5) I __:THE MOVEMENT: A NEW BEGINNING I I __ REVOLUTION: VIOLENT AND NON-VIOLENT I __WAVES OF RESISTANCE ! __ FIRST STREET SCHOOL I I __ REPORT FROM F.EVOLUTIONARY CHINA I I __ SEEDS OF LIBERATION I Name •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• I I I A ddre~ •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• I

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